I Know How Trump Goons Secretly Pull MAGA Strings — The Daily Beast Podcast

[00:00:00] Ashley St. Clair: Watching how everyone made money off of this, watching the pathology of it while they cried about cancel culture. I watched the vast amounts of money that they made off of Facebook, off of this content, off of outrage and fear porn. The coordination of the messaging that so much was not organic and the hypocrisy of what they were saying about George Soros funding everything. But then we had all this dark money coming in to these MAGA influencers and coordinated messaging. Everyone from top MAGA influencers to people at the White House to people on the Trump campaign, they had coordinated group chats, paid campaigns, paid campaign platforms in which they sent out this messaging. It was and is prolific. [00:00:51] Joanna Coles: I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast, and we have a really compelling conversation with you today, which talks about, well, it talks about MAGA, it talks about Turning Point, it talks about Erica Kirk, it talks about Elon Musk, all from a young woman who was right at the white hot center of it all. Yes, we're talking to Ashley St. Clair, Elon's baby mama, well, one of Elon's baby mamas, but also a Turning Point influencer as Turning Point was really at its sort of peak MAGA. I hope you find this conversation as compelling as I did. And before we get into it, just a reminder, the reason we can have these conversations is because we are independent media. We really appreciate your support. If you haven't, please subscribe to the Daily Beast. So many tiers of membership, smash the subscription button. But first, here's Ashley St. Clair. Ashley St. Clair, you are one of the most intriguing people. You were one of the first influencers for Turning Point for MAGA. You go on and have a baby with Elon Musk, and now you've had a complete conversion. You're about to go off to law school, and you're fighting against porn online. AI, in particular, created porn. So where do we begin? Well, I would say that it's not porn, because there's no consent. It is sexual abuse material. Okay, sexual abuse material. Okay, let's come on to that in a moment. But let's start at the beginning. I mean, you went to college in Colorado, and you [00:02:38] Ashley St. Clair: became an influencer for Turning Point. Very quickly. And I think always the important context is that I was homeschooled in high school, and we were in, you're wearing a Montana ranch girl shirt. [00:02:50] Joanna Coles: I was actually in Montana. I've been rumbled. I've been rumbled as a fake Montana person. I was in Montana in high [00:02:58] Ashley St. Clair: school in a little town of like 250 people and homeschooled. And how many siblings did you have? I have a lot of siblings. Very mixed family, but primarily I was growing up with my two younger brothers. My older siblings were mostly out of the house because they were so much older. And then I have two additional younger siblings, but primarily my two younger brothers. And I was homeschooled in high school. Then I go to college and right away get swept up in the Turning Point chapters and the Young Americans for Liberty chapters and start tweeting about politics. And it was very quickly that people like Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump Jr. and these larger figures within MAGA found my content. And I was invited to these events and invited to be a part of their [00:03:45] Joanna Coles: influencer network. And what was, did you believe what you were tweeting? Give me an example of the kind of [00:03:52] Ashley St. Clair: things that you were moved to tweet about. I think there was a primary fixation on, you know, classical liberalism, the ideas of individual liberty and free speech and the founding of the country. And that was my original inclination. And then once you get involved in this cult of MAGA, you're convinced that everything else is a logical offshoot of it, that everything else is [00:04:20] Joanna Coles: impeding on individual liberty or individualism. So what kind of things were you thinking that now you're like, oh, what was I thinking? I mean, when you say that, because a lot of how you present it makes sense that there has been a shutting out of ideas on university campuses in some places. We've seen, you know, students rebelling against inviting people they don't agree with. That was part of Charlie Kirk's whole thing, right? You know, come and debate me. So what were the things that you felt, that you feel looking back on it, that actually you were sort of coerced into, as it were? [00:05:00] Ashley St. Clair: I think from a macro level, it's that you are taught so often to look down for the blame for your problems rather than looking up. It's always some marginalized groups fault. It's the immigrants fault. It's the mass immigration problem. It's the transgender community that makes up less than one percent of the population. And they are now harming women and children. And that sort of stuff is what I have the deepest remorse for, that I played such a role in punching down, as opposed to looking up. [00:05:34] Joanna Coles: So you actually wrote a book called Elephants Are Not Birds. Can you tell us about it? [00:05:39] Ashley St. Clair: So in 2021, I believe that book was published. And at that time, I was convinced that this was some epidemic that they were going to trans all the children. And I was speaking from a place that I didn't know anything about this. I was pregnant with my first son, but I wasn't a mother. And I'm writing children's books. I have no experience in this. And I really hadn't spoken to anyone within the trans community. I was in this MAGA information silo of what were the issues at that time. I've since removed my name from the book. I don't make money from it or I have no relationship with the publisher. And I'm doing what I can to make amends to that community and really just trying to not speak on things that I don't know about. So I'm primarily trying to shift my focus to speaking about my own experiences rather than pretending to be some expert on trans issues plaguing the country. And the best I can do is be an advocate and support those communities that I had harmed, but primarily just speaking about my own experiences and things that I know about. [00:06:52] Joanna Coles: Okay. So tell me what it was like when you first realized that Charlie Kirk and Don Jr. had retweeted you and liked some of what you were saying. [00:07:03] Ashley St. Clair: You were like, "Oh my God, this is so cool." You know, there's that, especially as a teenage girl, because I had just started college. I had just turned 18. You know, I have a July 31st birthday. So like, you know, 30 seconds before I enter college, I'm 17. And so at that age, you're like, "Wow, I'm like a celebrity. I'm an influencer now." And it was very intoxicating to have that sort of attention and that dopamine rush from the social media likes and refreshing the feed to see who likes it now. And who's retweeting you now, who's following you now. And this sense of like, "Oh, I'm making it." [00:07:42] Joanna Coles: So what did you make of Charlie Kirk? [00:07:45] Ashley St. Clair: When I had first met him, he was, at least like from a human perspective, he was kind. He was always very kind to me, especially when there were a lot of times that I was on the receiving end of a lot of hate from particularly the right wing. [00:08:03] Joanna Coles: Why were you on the receipt of hate from the right wing? [00:08:06] Ashley St. Clair: Whenever I would have what I thought was reasonable opinions on say things like immigration or reproductive rights, like I had spoken out originally against the, I think it was Alabama, who had an abortion ban, even in cases of rape or incest. And I was like, "This is crazy." In terms of immigration, I had said, "Why is Colorado shouldn't be focusing on immigration? You know, there's education, healthcare, these things." And I was viciously attacked by Yann Coulter and Mark Dice and these people. And Charlie was very kind during those times. [00:08:38] Joanna Coles: And when you say he was very kind, what do you mean? Was he sending you a tweet saying, "Hang on in there?" [00:08:42] Ashley St. Clair: He was sending me texts and saying, "You're going to make it through this. You're rising very fast." And in fact, he had said, he was like, "You're rising much faster than I did. This happens every 18 months or so. How you handle these will make or break you." Like very astute advice from like, you know, someone who at that time I admired, but I also watched him shift to become audience captured in a way. And that's not to excuse his behavior and say he was just this, you know, unwilling participant. But his rhetoric started getting a lot more extreme, especially as it related to women. It was mirroring some Andrew Tate-isms of women hit the wall at 30 and don't go for a career. He, at one point, I got into a public scuffle with Charlie over birth control because he's like, "Birth control is black tar heroin. If your daughters or anyone you love is on it, get them off of it." And so he really started honing in on women and women not working. And I went on, I think it was the trigonometry podcast while I was still technically MAGA. And I said, "The right has a women problem." I said, "Charlie Kirk built his entire organization off of women sacrificing their twenties to work for him." And now you're going to say don't work. Now you're going to say your purpose is to have babies. So there was a shift, at least in my eyes. And I don't know if that shift was in Charlie or if it was just me getting older and realizing certain things. But I at least articulated a shift in that. [00:10:21] Joanna Coles: Let me tell you about OneSkin. They're a skincare company focused on science. Their OS1 peptide is designed to target the root causes of skin aging on a cellular level. I've been using the OS1 face moisturizer for a few months now. It's super easy to use, effortless to layer because it's lightweight, absorbs fast, and it has a good nutty smell. And well, you can be the judge. How does my skin look to you? By the way, I really like their sleek, flat packaging. Born from over a decade of longevity research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code BEAST at oneskin.co/beast. That's 15% off oneskin.co/beast. And be sure to use code BEAST at checkout. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. So what do you make of Turning Point now? And what do you make of Erica Kirk? When you watched her with all the sort of fireworks behind her at the memorial for Charlie Kirk, what was going through [00:11:48] Ashley St. Clair: your mind? I think it's a disaster. I really do. And the fireworks behind Erica Kirk are the most visible and fun to make fun of. However, if you go back to things like Stephen Miller's speech at that memorial, it was horrific. It was akin to what you would hear from Nazis. It was awful. What they they used that memorial for and everyone doing these things in the name of Charlie to push this agenda, I think, has been horrific. [00:12:21] Joanna Coles: And what do you think of Erica as someone carrying on Charlie's mantle? [00:12:28] Ashley St. Clair: I don't think that… I think she should take some time with the kids. I think it's a very difficult position to be in when you're grieving and you're raising children to now be the public face of this. I think she needs to take time off. I think Turning Point is dead in the water, really. [00:12:47] Joanna Coles: You think it's dead in the water? I do. And did you ever meet Charlie's parents? No. Did you think it was odd that Erica didn't refer to Charlie's parents in her address to that enormous crowd? [00:13:02] Ashley St. Clair: You know, I can't speak to that because I've never been in a situation where I've dealt with someone that I care about or someone in my family getting killed in that manner so horrifically and so publicly. I think to judge someone based on how they're reacting is not something I'm in a position to do. However, I do think there are more questions that should be asked about the investigation, about how Charlie died, about how certain things were conducted. I think those are important questions to ask. [00:13:36] Joanna Coles: So what was it that changed your mind about Turning Point and about MAGA? [00:13:44] Ashley St. Clair: There wasn't one thing. It was like cumulatively and then all at once. There were multiple times that there were schisms between me and MAGA. And from the left looking in, they view me as just MAGA. But if you ask a lot of people on the right, some will say she was a secret feminist. She was always a liberal. She was always this. So it's always varied based on who you talk to and where they are at on the political sphere. But I noticed particularly the treatment of women. And then when I worked with Haya Reshek of Libs of TikTok, that was also a turning point for me to see the way in which trans individuals were being attacked for virality. And there wasn't really a care about the human aspect. And some of the people that Haya was attacking, I knew personally, like I was developing friendships or relationships with. And she was just so cruel to them. And that was another moment. And then, of course, it's. And when you say cruel, what do you mean, you know, just give me an example, just purposely posting photos of them before their transitions. Or there were times where she wanted to post photos of children without blurring their face. And I'm like, we can't dox children. And I, because I had access to her inbox during this time, I would see like the effects that she had on people when she was doxing them, that these people, whether you agreed with something they posted or not, they were for all intents and purposes, most of them like private citizens. And then to be blown up on this platform and have members of Congress then facilitating the hate against these individuals, it was difficult to witness. So was that what sort of began to turn you off? It was that. And just the general dynamics of everything, watching how everyone made money off of this, watching the pathology of it while they cried about cancel culture. Most of these companies, especially media companies, they loved getting canceled. It was good for business to get banned from a social media platform. I watched the vast amounts of money that they made off of Facebook, off of this content, off of outrage and fear porn. That was really disheartening that they would take money from various organizations and they had no idea where the money was coming from. The coordination of the messaging that so much was not organic and the hypocrisy of what they were saying about George Soros funding everything. But then we had all this dark money coming into these MAGA influencers and coordinated messaging. So it was just a [00:16:37] Joanna Coles: culmination. And when you say coordinated messaging, who was coordinating it? Everyone from top MAGA influencers to [00:16:45] Ashley St. Clair: people at the White House to people on the Trump campaign, they had coordinated group chats, paid campaigns, paid campaign platforms in which they sent out this messaging. It was and is prolific. [00:16:58] Joanna Coles: So I first read about you in the piece in the Wall Street Journal. They wrote a huge page piece about how you had had a baby with Elon Musk and then turned down his offer of an NDA and a large chunk of money, I'll let you give the details, to be silent. And you decided to turn it down. First of all, how did you meet Elon Musk? He followed me on Twitter. Which I guess you can do if you own the platform. Was it still [00:17:29] Ashley St. Clair: Twitter at that point? It was still Twitter. The bird had not been taken away. And then he slid in my DMs. I eventually met him in San Francisco when at the time I was at the Babylon Bee and the Babylon Bee had done an interview with him at Twitter headquarters. And I met him there and ended up on his plane that night. So what was your first impression of him? I thought he was very fascinating. Well, first I was like, you're much taller than I expected. But he was fascinating in many regards. Just you don't often talk to someone who's able to talk about the rockets or everything that they're doing for a betterment of humanity. And it's not some 20 year old guy showing you his ski videos. [00:18:16] Joanna Coles: Oh, the ski videos. You'd be surprised how many older men show you ski videos. [00:18:21] Ashley St. Clair: Yeah. Not the ski videos. Yeah. It was different and intoxicating to be around someone who, you know, was talking about anything other than what I was surrounded with. [00:18:34] Joanna Coles: So how did you end up having a child together? [00:18:37] Ashley St. Clair: We, the relationship continued and the contact continued rather consistently. And eventually we decided to have a child together. What's it like having sex with Elon Musk? You know, I'm gonna plead the fifth on that one. [00:18:54] Joanna Coles: Does he talk all the way through? I'm gonna plead the fifth. Okay. I've always thought the boring company. We'll talk about it after. Okay. We'll definitely talk about it after. I feel like as a former editor of Cosmopolitan, I can ask you these questions. But I've always thought the boring company, his drilling company, was a sort of interesting metaphor for him, given how many children he's got. So, um, when, when did it start to go south with him? And funnily enough, I have another friend who dated Elon and there was some sort of ripple effects in her post-Elon life, which I'm interested to share with you. But, but when did it start going south? [00:19:37] Ashley St. Clair: It started when I was pregnant and I'm, I'm not sure if I just started noticing things more, but the way I perceived it was he just got more controlling. There were just weird things being said, saying that we need to use surrogates to have enough, to have a legion of kids before the apocalypse. Um, he told me I should have a c-section, elect to have a c-section for the brain size. There was just. [00:20:03] Joanna Coles: For the brain size. Why does the brain remain bigger if you have a c-section? Didn't inquire, didn't care. Okay. Good for you. Did you end up having a vaginal birth? [00:20:11] Ashley St. Clair: I, I had a, everything on me works fine. I was not about to elect for anything that I didn't need. Right. And so there, and there were just moments, he also started getting more down. His rhetoric was more towards what I felt like was eugenics. Um, talking a lot about demographics that I was uncomfortable with. And like, what kind of things? Just demographics or destiny sort of talk. The things he was posting online started veering from, you know, national security for immigration to, oh, there's, you know, inherent differences here. And I just, there was also simultaneously, I remember very distinctly, and my mother does because she was with me. I was pregnant and I saw some of the news about his custody battle with Grimes and Claire. And in that moment, I was like, this is wrong. Like, this is awful what he's doing to her. And I was like, I'm going to have to protect myself. [00:21:15] Joanna Coles: And could you talk about that with him? [00:21:18] Ashley St. Clair: I, I wasn't going to, to tell him, hey, cut that out. I don't think that was going to work. Right. Um, I just needed to be smart in how I navigated things because I, I would be naive to think that it wouldn't end the same way for me. And what did your friends all think? The ones who knew it was, it was varied, you know, it was just, I am blessed to have, for the most part, very supportive people around me. So it was always, you know, Ashley, whatever you do, you're a smart girl, you'll figure it out. Um, that was kind of how it was. [00:21:57] Joanna Coles: Have you met the mothers of his other children? How many children's he got now? I don't know, 15, 16 children? [00:22:04] Ashley St. Clair: The limit does not exist, but, um, I've met his mother, but, um, and I, I've not had, you know, meaningful contact with the other mothers. And even if I did, I wouldn't want to put them in any sort of risk because he is a very vindictive person. Like, I wouldn't go out and air that to the world that we were speaking. [00:22:28] Joanna Coles: And is it true that some of them live in a compound and the children all sort of play together and there's a whole sort of Elon town? [00:22:35] Ashley St. Clair: I don't know, because I did not go there. [00:22:37] Joanna Coles: You would not want to go and live in Elon town. No, no. Okay. So let's talk about his vindictiveness and the kind of, um, sexual images that have been created of you on his platform, Onyx. [00:22:52] Ashley St. Clair: It's not just me. It's millions of women and children, millions of women and children. Back in late December, early January, Grok was deployed without safeguards, uh, with the ability to undress women and children. And I was one of those people. They took images of me, including of me at 14 and undress me, covered me in semen, uh, had videos of me rubbing my breasts. And I, I loathe the term deep fake because I think it discounts how realistic it was because real images from my real life were still in the background. Like my son's real backpack was still there. And like the only difference was the clothes I was wearing. Um, and if, if I were to post these on any other social media platform, I would be banned. I can't even show you what, what happened. And the images I saw of other children and women were horrific and they had the ability to, to not deploy it this way. And so often, you know, I spoke in Berlin about AI regulation and someone asks a question and says, well, you know, it's the person who prompted it. And I reject that entirely because it is the engineers is the platform who allowed that product to be deployed on safely. Right. And you can also have AI scroll the images and take them off. Yes. And from my understanding, at least recently, I had someone who works at XAI, who sent me internal images that they are still training Grok to do this, the, the undressing. Are you in contact with Elon? I did not speak to him about this matter. Why not? Because it's, I, I don't know why this question is constantly brought up that if he's going to allow this to undress everyone else, like why me texting him? First of all, I don't think that's fair for me to text him and say, Hey, can you maybe stop it from undressing me? But you are the mother of one of his children. I don't think he cares. I don't, historically, I don't think he cares. There's no differentiator there for him. Um, the moment that I was disobedient, I was an enemy to him. And what was your disobedience? That I said no to signing, uh, the NDA that I decided to do what I was going to do and go public before a tabloid did, uh, that there was no going back after that. And I knew that I was very aware of that. Why did you get that? Because there was a tabloid who, at that point had been physically confronting my family, uh, going to offices. One of my neighbors even stopped me who I had never spoken to. I was in the hallway and he was like, Hey, I know we've never spoken, but when you get a moment, please come to my apartment. I need to talk to you about something. So I did. And he goes, we could not be more different politically, but you should know this outlet called me. They were asking about your child. They were asking about Elon. They were asking about your other son and all of this stuff. Um, so at that point, I'm like, there's no shot in hell. I'm letting some tabloid get an exclusive on my baby and my son feel like a secret. I'm just not doing that. And so I went public. And how hard a decision was that? Um, I think the initial inclination was no, like I don't want this happening. And obviously I grappled back and forth and spoke with the people around me, but the initial instinct was that's no way in [00:26:36] Joanna Coles: hell am I letting them do that. So you come out, you say I've had a baby with Elon Musk. I'm one of several women that's had a baby with Elon Musk. Um, is he still, is he paying child support now? I'm not at liberty to discuss those matters. Okay. So did you end up signing in effect an NDA? No. Right. So you're free to talk about it. You're not going to talk about your financial arrangements. [00:27:02] Ashley St. Clair: I, I'm not at liberty to discuss it because there's an ongoing court case. Okay. Yeah. Right. I can't [00:27:10] Joanna Coles: imagine what it's like trying to wrestle Elon Musk into court. Probably a bit like wrestling Donald Trump [00:27:16] Ashley St. Clair: into court. I don't, I think people give them too much credit. It's, it's really the lawyers, but. [00:27:23] Joanna Coles: Right. Right. Fair. And so does your son have contact with his dad? [00:27:30] Ashley St. Clair: Again, that would fall under the umbrella of custody that I just can't speak about right now because [00:27:37] Joanna Coles: of the ongoing litigation. Okay. Can you tell us exactly what the litigation's about? I can't personally speak about it. Okay. And what about Elon's mom, May Musk? You mentioned that you'd. Yeah, I had met her. Right. Are you still in touch? No, no. Okay. All right. So tell us about what you're doing now. You're going, you're about to go to law school. Congratulations. Thank you. And what, what's the plan at the end of it? And, and talk a little bit more about the, your work to protect other women from the AI sex images. [00:28:12] Ashley St. Clair: So, well, it's not just the AI sexual abuse material. I think it's AI as a whole, but I had always wanted to go to law school. I originally went to school for philosophy with intentions of going to law school. And then I dropped out and ended up being in MAGA full time. And so the way I view it is meeting Ashley, where I left her, and that's been really healing for me to like go back and, and do these things. And so I'm really excited. I'm hoping that it gives me the tools necessary to affect lasting change. I really, really want to help reform some of these systems, particularly that have been difficult for me because I am privileged and I do have access to knowledge and resources. Even if it's not material resources, I have access to very knowledgeable people and privileged people that, and it's still so difficult for me to navigate this system. And if it's that difficult for me, what the fuck is it like for everyone else? And so I really want to help, uh, reform what I believe is severe misjustice within our judicial system, as well as hold some of these companies accountable because the way I look at it, like, especially neoliberalism rose with the gains that we had in civil rights and suffrage in tandem, like right on the heels of that, you see this rise of neoliberalism and this economization of democracy, which I think has been really harmful. Um, the, the wealthy effectively went to the courts and complained that they and corporations are some political minorities in need of like civil rights protections. And they expanded the definitions of speech and personhood itself to these entities that, you know, cases like Buckley v. Vallejo and Citizens United have really just torn apart our democracy. And so that's going to be the central area of my focus, is addressing those issues of inequity. What is it like dating? Like when people meet you and they [00:30:24] Joanna Coles: hear that you have a child with Elon Musk, which I guess comes up at date number five or something, [00:30:29] Ashley St. Clair: if they don't know in advance. I don't really date. You don't date? No, I think I think I've proven that I have a very bad picker. Okay. So I, um, and I'm just focusing on my kids, you know, I, and going to school and I don't really have the emotional capital for another individual right now. Um, and I've had a really bad habit that I've had to work through on being a pick me when it comes to men. And I think there was something within me that really wanted some sort of male validation that I, I just want to stay away from that right now. I'm 27. I have time. Like I'll be okay. I just want to focus on. [00:31:17] Joanna Coles: Well, if you change your mind, I've got several people I want to introduce you to. Um, and what about the father of your first child? He's, you know, we're friends, [00:31:26] Ashley St. Clair: we're friendly. And so it's, there's, there's not much to say there. And I like to keep that private, [00:31:33] Joanna Coles: like as much as possible. Right. I'm not suggesting that you want revenge on Elon, but I'm, I'm distressed to hear that you don't have a dating life because it's so much more fun to have a partner or someone else around. You know, I think that's just, [00:31:48] Ashley St. Clair: I have a great deal of fun without that. I have great friends and girlfriends and guy friends and people in my life and my kids. Like I'm very content and fulfilled much more than I was when I had seven figures in my bank account. And so, and I was dating and, you know, live in the high life. I'm much happier now and I have a much better time now. Um, but I do, I will say so often people will frame me as being scorned. And when a woman is speaking out against injustice, we're framed as scorned or vengeful. And it's like, well, are we scorned with cause, you know? But when people like Elon go on these tirades against anyone who's even like looked at them sideways, it's seen as like some righteous, like Roman gladiator type justice and, uh, the entire presidency there, they campaigned on a vengeance tour. But when women, you know, exude any sort of emotion that's not deemed feminine, it's, you know, oh, she's just scorned. Right. Right. Fair. And does he do a lot of drugs? [00:32:55] Joanna Coles: Was that your experience? Did you guys take drugs together? You know, I witnessed him doing drugs, [00:33:00] Ashley St. Clair: the extent of it. I am not at, I can't really say because I wasn't around him on a daily basis to see if it was, um, a daily occurrence. I will say it's concerning the things that I've heard from very reputable people just about the extent of the use. And when you witnessed it, what, what, what was he taking? Ketamine, mushrooms, like just that sort of stuff. How did he behave when he was taking? I didn't really notice anything different, which. Right. Maybe he was taking low doses. No, but it was also, I think, an indicator that maybe he had some sort of tolerance. Um, so it, I also just like to, especially given that I have a child with this individual, like I do hope that he gets help. Um, and I like to frame it as this is someone with a lot of potential who has a lot of really good qualities, but has made very bad, horrific choices. And the things that are bad about Elon are his choices, which are really detrimental to not only himself, but everyone around him. And so many people across the globe, it's his choices, um, rather than like something [00:34:22] Joanna Coles: inherent in him. And when you say his choices, what, what specific choices? I think especially [00:34:28] Ashley St. Clair: being vindictive and this pursuit of power that he is and winning at all costs. And I think there's some sort of hole that he's filling within himself that, you know, he's made choices to fill that hole rather than doing some work. Um, you know, he, he said, I'll die with never went to therapy on my gravestone. And I just think that's really sad. I think it's sad that, uh, he's so adverse to getting help. [00:35:00] Joanna Coles: Much has been made, not least in Walter Isaacson's book about him, um, on his relationship with his father, that his father was utterly unsympathetic as a father, and, um, also strangely ended up living with his stepdaughter that he's explained away. That whole situation's weird. I don't know. Did he ever talk about his dad with you and his relationship with his dad with you? [00:35:26] Ashley St. Clair: He did, but I, I don't think it's much different than the things he said publicly. Um, so. [00:35:33] Joanna Coles: Well, he can't be that bad a picker because he picked you. [00:35:37] Ashley St. Clair: Maybe he is. Who knows? I think if you asked him, he'd say he has a bad picker then, but, um, you know, I'm also not, uh, I don't want to fall into the role of being the Elon psychoanalyst either, because while I did spend a great deal of time with him and I knew him and I'm still having to deal with, um, him and his agents on a near daily basis, um, he has lived a very long life. He's like double my age and I, I cannot speak to the entire pathology of him. And I think he needs to answer those questions, um, whether to people like you or to Congress. And, and to Congress, what do you mean? I think he, his effects of his actions have been so widespread that he, he has a lot of, there's a lot of questions that people would like answers to the general public that are much deeper [00:36:35] Joanna Coles: than anything I could provide you. And, and what are you talking about specifically, [00:36:40] Ashley St. Clair: the impact of X or? The impact of X, the, uh, and Twitter, that platform, the impact of his AI technology, the impact of Starlink, his role in that, um, internationally, his role in the government. I think there's a lot of questions that people have that he should be [00:36:58] Joanna Coles: answering. Do you think he had any idea what he was doing when he went to Doge? [00:37:01] Ashley St. Clair: Uh, yes. I think he had a very deliberate goal. And this is my opinion from the things that he had said to me of one, I think he wanted that data. And two, most importantly, I think he, he was very concerned about the investigations in his words of significance into him, um, from various agencies. [00:37:24] Joanna Coles: Go on. [00:37:25] Ashley St. Clair: That's what he said. He said, you know, there's at least a half a dozen initiatives of significance into me and I will help Trump win. So for him, I, that was a motivator. [00:37:38] Joanna Coles: So on balance, given that you have a gorgeous son out of it, would you do it all again? [00:37:47] Ashley St. Clair: Yes. Yes. I, you know, my, both of my children are so wonderful and I love them. My older son, he's like, mommy, do you ever talk about me when you go on TV? I'm like all the time, baby. Like, I, you know, and my younger son, he's, he's, uh, so incredible and so happy and just such a smart and kind little boy that I just, um, yeah, I think you'd always do it all over again for your kids. [00:38:14] Joanna Coles: And of course your kid is half Musk. So do you see any traits in him? [00:38:21] Ashley St. Clair: Well, that baby does not look like me. I keep saying, I'm like, who's blonde baby is this? Um, it does not, you know, my son doesn't look much like me. My younger son, my older son is almost my doppelganger, but, um, my younger son also has like a lot of determination. Like he gets very determined in a way that I only saw in Elon. And that's part of the reason, I guess, um, I like to say that it's Elon's choices, not who he is. I'd like to think that my son has inherited all of the good qualities of Elon. Um, and, uh, you know, I, I think he's going to be okay in my son. [00:39:01] Joanna Coles: I'm sure he's going to be okay. So how long do you think your case is going to take to resolve? [00:39:07] Ashley St. Clair: I may be in court the rest of my life. Who knows? We're in three different courts right now. And at the very least, uh, I may have to be in court for the next 21 years with this individual, but at least for 18 of them, I'll have ESQ after my name. Just going back to when you were a MAGA influencer [00:39:25] Joanna Coles: and you were at turning point, um, how much money did you make from it all? You talked about dropping out of college. You did it full time. What, what kind of summons? I didn't make a lot of money from [00:39:37] Ashley St. Clair: like the actual influencing aspect of it. Um, I was a really bad grifter, you know, everyone's like, oh, she's a grifter. But my primary income was from normal w two jobs. I worked at a production company that was co-founded by Benny Johnson. Um, and then I worked at, you know, the parent company, the Babylon Bee doing operations for Seth Dillon. And so I would make money here and there. Like even the book, I didn't make that much money on. I think it panned out to like eight grand a year after you divided it up. Like it really wasn't, um, a whole lot of money made off of the influencer aspect of it. [00:40:15] Joanna Coles: It was primary w two jobs. Right. But you had enormous reach. Yeah. Why do you think the MAGA organization seems to be more effective and more organized in their messaging [00:40:36] Ashley St. Clair: than the Democrats? Because they're more of a cult. Um, they're better at moving the cult base. It's, you know, that's like asking why, why is, uh, Jim Jones better at getting people to drink Kool-Aid than Joanna? Um, it's because they're, they're really ingrained with this cultish pathology. I also think the Democratic Party is very fractured. I think they've tried to take more of a centrist, moderate approach that nobody is really buying. I think the general public just on the left and the right are seeing the devastating effects of neoliberalism and the capitalist class and the wealth inequality and that they've been sold this lie that the invisible hand will guide them instead of whip them. And so I, I do think that's why you're also seeing more of a rise of these progressive politics. I think that's why Trump and MAGA are now pushing this new McCarthyism red scare all over again. And so, you know, I don't think MAGA is as impenetrable as people would like to think. I think the Democratic Party just has not decided to fracture their own elites. I think there is establishment interest within the Democratic Party that are very scared of a populist movement towards socialism or progressive policies. Um, that, you know, they may as well just be like, never Trump Republicans. And so I think once they accept that shift towards progressivism and against these neoliberal ideas that have been devastating that they'll be able to find more cohesion. [00:42:25] Joanna Coles: Okay. Do you have any thoughts on Graham Plattner who, as we are, we're recording this on a Wednesday [00:42:30] Ashley St. Clair: morning, hasn't yet stepped aside? I think he needs to resign. And the Democrats are really good at getting this out of their party. They did this with Eric Swalwell and, you know, of course, MAGA is all, oh look, Bernie Sanders endorsed him. Meanwhile, Boris Epstein is running the DOJ. Uh, in the Trump administration, there have been allegations of sexual misconduct. He is now effectively running the DOJ and installing his own people in there. I still have the text from Elon where he said, you know, Boris is pure poison. He's taking money for appointments and he wants to install these Sullivan and Cromwell assholes. That story about Boris Epstein and his blowout with Elon was real. They have Madison Cawthorn who they embrace with open arms, who he, I had an uncomfortable experience with him where he grabbed my leg and there were countless women who had stories about him. He was a member of Congress and now I believe he's running again in, uh, Florida. He was the one in the wheelchair. Right. He was, yes, the young kid. Oh, he's young. Yes. Yeah. Okay. But also prolific predator. And so, you know, these, as much as they want to talk about Graham Plattner and this and that, I think the responsibility is on Plattner. He never should run if he had these skeletons in his closet. He has done such a disservice. But simultaneously, the worst thing to happen would be the Democrats putting in some cushy establishment person. They need someone who's just as, if not more progressive than Plattner, to take his place immediately. [00:44:03] Joanna Coles: Well, that's pretty coherent. Why aren't Democrats able to say that? So we're always hearing that, that MAGA and Trump have been clever in sort of capturing the culture wars, that Democrats have somehow appeared elite and to be talking down to people. Is that what you saw? [00:44:22] Ashley St. Clair: No, I think MAGA was really good at creating this, uh, emotional imagery of what the left and what socialists were in this, this anytime people in MAGA would think of a liberal, they'd think of these screaming blue haired people. And that was really effective to have that sort of imagery. Um, and they've been very effective in having orators of propaganda. And the Democrats are just not very good at social media. They're not good at talking about, they're always on the defense rather than offense. They're not really making great online content that explains the issues that people need to be hearing about. Um, I don't think most people know the history of red scare in this country. I doubt you or anyone in this room really knew that Helen Keller was on the FBI watch list for her views on communism. Right. I didn't know that. No. And so it's, you know, there, there are articulations and counters to the points that MAGA are making that I believe the Democrats don't make because they're scared to go there. They're because of their own interests, because of capitalist interest, even to speak out against AI. We're just allowing them to speak about this as it's an inevitability where they're extracting. To me, AI is like the final terrain of extraction. And you have these people protesting data centers and there's no central focus within the Democratic Party about this and what they're going to do about this. When you have such populist uprising against this technology and these data centers and the environmental issues that it poses, I, and the extraction of the general intellect, I think that is, [00:46:07] Joanna Coles: should be forefront. So what would you recommend they do come up with, um, central messaging in a sense about data centers, about AI, about the economy? [00:46:19] Ashley St. Clair: About extraction, about capitalism, about neoliberal agendas that have, you know, I think it was Professor Wendy Brown who talked about how it economized democracy. When you make it one giant marketplace, the, the demos, the democracy, it's destroyed because now you have the citizens and individuals looking to the market for answers saying, "Please, you know, CEO of Microsoft, do something. CEO of, you know, OpenAI, do something." As opposed to any exercise in democratic power, it's completely divorced them and disenfranchised them from their own, uh, democratic agency. [00:47:01] Joanna Coles: To what extent did the MAGA influencers you met really believe what they were talking about? Or to what extent do you think they were doing it for attention and faith? [00:47:11] Ashley St. Clair: I think it varies. I think there's, you know, I think the true believers are really, um, within the base of MAGA, like the voter base. I think with, among the influencers, it's a blend that they tell themselves they believe it, but really they're filling some hole. They need validation. They need attention. They like the invites. There are consistently times that they knew something was morally wrong or they wouldn't want to speak out about it because there's a higher cause for the movement. Um, you know, and they are making decent money off of this. But also, for the large majority of MAGA influencers, they're not getting incredibly wealthy off of this. They're making just enough money to be comfortable and just enough that if they leave, they're devastated. And so that infrastructure of that cult is also why I think it's really difficult for people to leave because if they leave, they've blown up their whole lives. Right. They disappear. Yeah. Um, what would you say to young [00:48:16] Joanna Coles: women getting involved in MAGA right now? I mean, young college students. It will come for you. It [00:48:23] Ashley St. Clair: will come for you. Whether it's now, just because you're close to power does not mean that it won't swallow you whole too. Um, they hate you. They do not want you to have rights. Listen to them and believe them when they say that women are just emotional and can't make decisions and shouldn't vote. They really want to take your right to vote away. And we worked a long, hard time to get that right. It wasn't until the seventies that we could even open our own credit cards. Um, you need, I have a bit more disdain and maybe it's self-hatred, but for the women who perpetuate this, because the women who perpetuate the patriarchy wouldn't be able to be perpetuated without these female talking heads who are laundering [00:49:11] Joanna Coles: the messaging to disseminate it to women. Do you think that JD Vance, given how popular he was with Charlie Kirk and with Turning Point, do you think that he stands a chance of, of, uh, of [00:49:26] Ashley St. Clair: succeeding Donald Trump? No, not at all. I think he has the charisma of like a wet napkin. I also think I think everyone knows he's Peter Thiel's bitch too. Like he's just not, he doesn't have the motion there. He's no, I don't think so. So you appear completely fearless. I mean, [00:49:48] Joanna Coles: the targets, your targets are incredible. Is, is this part of your homeschooling? I mean, where, where does this kind of, where does this essence, the real essence, as you said, you met [00:50:01] Ashley St. Clair: Ashley again? Where does that come from? I think it's just a choice. Um, you're never going to feel ready, being ready to fight or be brave. That's not a feeling. It's a decision. Um, and to be brave or to have courage is to simultaneously be afraid because you can't be brave and you can't be courageous if you're not simultaneously scared. It is scary. There are, um, terrifying consequences of speaking out and fighting, but you live once. That's, that's it. And I want to set a good example for my children. And when I think about what I want them to do, I want them to be brave, to do the right thing. Even if it means making a sacrifice, um, and show like a type of sacrificial love to the world and your fellow humans, I think that's an inherently good thing. And how do you manage what I imagine [00:50:59] Joanna Coles: is quite a lot of stress? You said you're in three courts with Elon Musk. How, what's your, I mean, you've talked about, you've got good friends, you've got good people around you, which is obviously essential. Is there anything else you do to sort of calm yourself or self-soothe as people nowadays say? [00:51:16] Ashley St. Clair: Yeah. I do a lot of writing, but also shout out to Lexapro and my doctor. I think I need to be on like a 12 commercial series for Lexapro. Um, but also just taking care of my mental health. Within MAGA, there's this stigma against mental health treatment, particularly SSRIs. And I feel so guilty for perpetuating that harm and, you know, encouraging people not to be on SSRIs or not to get help. And for me, it has been lifesaving to get that kind of help and realize that I didn't have to struggle the way that I was. Um, so that's been really helpful. And again, like just so much love and support from my family and my friends that I could not be more appreciative about. And when Elon Musk slid into [00:52:06] Joanna Coles: your DMs and you then started dating, did you feel that this was going to be a long-term thing? Were you [00:52:12] Ashley St. Clair: in love with him? I don't think that there in that moment, you know, if you're asking about when that happened, I don't think there was, Oh my goodness, this is like it. We're like in love type of thing. I don't think I had any inclination of what it would turn into. And from your point of view, did it turn into a real relationship? I think it could be best described as like, you know, there were aspects of it that were like a relationship, but maybe more of a Gen Z situationship type term, but, um, it was, there were moments that were emotional or, you know, he would call me or text me and say, I'm thinking of you. And there were moments he would be very sweet or send flowers. And so there, there were components of it, but you know, I, I'm not quite [00:53:04] Joanna Coles: sure the right way to define it. Ashley, thank you very much for talking to us. You remain incredibly intriguing. Well, that was a lot. I'm still unpacking some of that. And I'm also fascinated by people who've been homeschooled. I don't really understand it. I don't understand parents who would want to homeschool and it seems so limiting for the children. And I can't imagine what it's like having a baby with Elon Musk and having to deal with all that hostility and all the awful sexual imagery created around you on X. Anyway, tell us what you think. Leave us comments. And would you have joined Turning Point at college? Big thanks to our production team. Brian Murray, John Romero, Heather Sarah, Sarah, Rachel Passa, Neil Rosenhouse, Max, the intern. So the good news is we have so many B-beast tier members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.