Trump's MANIACAL Meltdown Is A Sign w/ Rick WIlson

[0:00] Welcome, welcome, Rick Wilson. [0:03] Hey, Molly, how are you? [0:04] I'm good. [0:05] This interview where we saw Donald Trump [0:11] just completely melt down at Kristen Welker, [0:14] is he too emotional to be president? [0:16] I'm worried that he might be in menopause or something [0:20] because he's very emotional. [0:21] I mean, I'm just concerned that his emotions [0:24] are going to sweep him away in some sort of [0:27] ill-considered decision at some point. [0:29] Molly, if this had been a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton [0:33] or hypothetical President Kamala Harris, [0:35] Fox News would have double sirens running on both sides of the screen [0:40] and it would be the largest meltdown [0:43] in American right-wing social media history. [0:46] But Donald Trump showed us today. [0:50] Look, I think two thirds of the interview was pretty much like [0:54] her asking questions, him rolling over her, the usual crap from Trump. [0:59] But the last few minutes where he loses his shit [1:02] and he looked maniacal in the last few minutes. [1:05] He was sweating like a hog. [1:07] He looked like he was out of his damn gourd. [1:10] His eyes were pachinko balls in his head. [1:14] And he really, he really got deeply triggered on that [1:19] and went into a rant like you rarely see an insane person. [1:23] I mean, at this point, it'd be like, [1:24] we got to take the keys, Grandpa, for most American families. [1:27] So, yeah, that was something. [1:29] That's the thing that I was thinking about, too, [1:32] was this idea that here's a guy who's 79 years old. [1:35] And what I keep getting struck by is that he just like quiet piggy. [1:40] Remember when he said that, like, it just feels like he doesn't have [1:43] the kind of restraint that a person even five years younger might. [1:48] No, he really has lost that ability to check his internal monologue [1:54] and not have it spew out all over the, you know, the airwaves. [1:58] He doesn't like her, obviously. [2:00] You can, you can, you definitely can vibe that from the very beginning. [2:04] But there was a long period of that interview where he was trying to lock down [2:09] his message on Iran in particular. [2:11] It didn't go very well on either side. [2:15] I didn't think in the, you know, she kept asking the same sort of family of questions. [2:18] He kept lying about it. [2:20] But at the end, when he became uncontrolled and so irate, [2:26] he couldn't manage his own emotions. [2:29] I mean, there was a part of that where I wish she had said, [2:31] we're done, shut the mic off, we're done. [2:34] I would love to see that happen to him one time, one time. [2:38] But I mean, he jumps up, he throws the mic on the ground. [2:40] He stepped on the mic on his way out of the interview. [2:44] I think this was not a great look for Trump. [2:47] There will be some people on the right. [2:48] The Breitbart is going to go, Trump, fire, fire, firebombs, [2:53] libtard interview or whatever. [2:56] But everybody who watches that in the, in their, in their, [2:58] in the comfort of their own home is going to go. [3:00] Even his supporters would be like, dude, that's a lot. [3:04] That's a little much there, Don, a little, a little too cuckoo. [3:08] And if you're a foreign power or a foreign leader, holy crap, Molly. [3:11] He showed them once again, he cannot regulate his emotional state. [3:16] He cannot manage his emotional state. [3:18] They can poke him. [3:20] They can prod him. [3:21] They can flatter him. [3:22] They can insult him. [3:23] They can make him fly off the handle. [3:24] And let's go back to the, the words and wisdom of Hillary Clinton. [3:29] We do not need a president who can be provoked by a tweet. [3:32] And yet we have one. [3:32] Yeah. [3:33] I mean, that is really scary, but I also do think like one of the things that he has benefited [3:39] from so much is his ability to just go through people, right? [3:45] He's so skilled at doing interviews. [3:48] He's so skilled at being in the media that he tends to be able to run rough show over people [3:56] and just keep going. [3:57] But he's doing these interviews because he needs to win over the middle. [4:03] This entire interview really was fascinating to me in, in, in the, in that regard, because [4:09] he made arguments like the economy is better than it's ever been. [4:14] Everybody's doing so great. [4:16] We're going to cut interest rates any minute. [4:19] Now the farmers all love me. [4:21] This catalog of stuff that he was saying there, none of it's true outside of his brain. [4:26] And no, nobody's out in the, in the country right now saying, wow, the economy could just [4:31] not be better. [4:31] It is amazing how great the economy is. [4:34] Everybody's petrified. [4:35] He may not have noticed that on Friday, the stock market took a massive nosedive, call [4:40] me crazy. [4:41] But all of this, I think adds up to more, even of his own supporters, like he's not getting [4:49] it. [4:50] He doesn't understand it. [4:51] I mean, I was really shocked. [4:52] He didn't like divert into the ballroom and the, and the, and the reflecting pond and [4:57] all that other stuff. [4:59] But he doesn't, he doesn't even know how disconnected he sounds now. [5:02] But he is doing this because he knows that they're pushing him to do these interviews [5:07] because they are hoping that he can get himself in a better position for the midterm. [5:13] Yes. [5:13] A hundred percent. [5:14] He doesn't want to do these interviews. [5:15] He does not want to be out there. [5:17] He clearly would prefer to be golfing. [5:20] Right. [5:20] Right. [5:21] Or at Don Jr.'s wedding. [5:23] By the way, another interesting tell about Trump, he was sitting at that thing he did [5:27] at the John Deere, at the farm rally this week, sitting. [5:31] I also noticed, and my wife was pointing out like, what is wrong with his damn feet? [5:36] Why? [5:36] He was, if you look at a picture of this, of this interview, first off, he's sweaty as [5:41] hell. [5:41] His eyes are almost completely squinty, closed shut. [5:44] And something is wrong with his legs and feet. [5:48] Something is weird about it. [5:49] So let's talk about that because we try not to talk about that because whatever, we're [5:54] not doctors. [5:55] But my man certainly has bruises all down his hands. [5:59] Like inside the wrists now, in some of these photographs we're seeing. [6:04] And he looks very swollen, too. [6:06] He does. [6:07] And his eyes are so swollen. [6:08] He looks like he's been at, you know, looks like there's a White House fight club. [6:11] You know, his eyes are like, like completely piggied up. [6:15] There's like big puffs underneath both eyes. [6:18] But again, as you said, we're not doctors, but some ain't right. [6:24] I also think that what I see here is that he benefits from looking so terrible, like that [6:32] he can he sort of continues on this way. [6:36] And so it means that people don't ask questions like think so much about Biden. [6:41] Right. [6:42] Biden has been out of the spotlight. [6:43] He he gave he went and spoke in South Dakota or I think I think South Dakota, he was on [6:50] the he was he was talking to a group this weekend. [6:53] And because he had been out of the spotlight for such a long time, obviously, he's not [6:57] president anymore. [6:57] But, you know, when he was president, he was not so often in the spotlight and he was not [7:02] so often talking to the press. [7:03] And so every time he did, he got so much scrutiny. [7:06] Whereas Donald Trump is out there all the time. [7:09] Yeah. [7:09] I mean, look, it's sort of like a medical Overton window. [7:12] It's sort of like he looks terrible. [7:13] So the next time you see him looking terrible, you know, he looks about as terrible as he [7:17] did the last time. [7:18] But if you look at even from the fall of 24 to right now, this guy is in a different [7:25] physical world than he was even in the fall of 24. [7:28] Yeah. [7:29] Much less in the fall of 16. [7:30] When you go back and look at that stuff, you know, he looks like a guy who looks like [7:34] a relatively healthy guy in the 16 videos. [7:38] But now I think you're right. [7:40] I think people will sort of like they see it so much. [7:42] He's so omnipresent in our media that it doesn't shock people as much as it would if they'd [7:47] just seen him for the first time in six months. [7:48] I also think because he gets away with so much and there's such a, you know, a partisan [7:53] framing about him that if you criticize him, you must be, you must have Trump derangement. [7:58] Right. [7:58] That that's a real thing. [7:59] We need to talk about Scott Pelley and CBS 60 Minutes. [8:04] My God. [8:05] So basically the entire week, Pelley was fired after this heated confrontation with a guy [8:14] called Nick Bilton who has no experience with television. [8:18] I know him from, and I know him from Vanity Fair. [8:20] He was a blogger at the times. [8:22] Then he was a writer at Vanity Fair. [8:25] No TV experience has been brought in. [8:27] He's not, I mean, I've read his stuff. [8:30] He's not a terrible writer, but running a television news magazine like 60 Minutes is a very narrow [8:37] skill set. [8:37] And it's not. [8:38] You and I are good writers. [8:40] That does not mean we could run 60 Minutes. [8:41] And he's, and it's also 60 Minutes is, is hugely successful, wildly popular, and has really [8:47] good numbers. [8:48] So Scott Pelley did this interview today with Lulu Garcia Navarro for the New York Times. [8:54] And in it, he showed where Barry Weiss had gone in and said that you got to make the protesters [9:01] look more violent. [9:02] He said, not verbatim, but so talk to me. [9:06] And, and she said, you need to make it look like she was, that Renee Goode was driving [9:11] the car into the officers. [9:14] And here's the thing I think that's really important about that, Molly. [9:17] As Pelley recounted this story, one very, very interesting detail about it, that he said [9:24] it was in an email to Tanya Simon, who was running, who was Pelley's boss at 60. [9:30] Pelley's not going to make that up. [9:31] He's a straight guy. [9:33] He's a, he's a, he's a straight up guy. [9:35] He's not going to make up an email. [9:37] That means that email has been sent by Barry Weiss, seen by other people. [9:43] At least 10 people, probably. [9:46] At least 10 people. [9:47] And that thing now exists. [9:48] It exists in the world. [9:50] Barry Weiss is going to be in a really tough spot because when it comes out that she did [9:55] that, it blows up the whole Barry Weiss idea. [9:58] Right. [9:58] Oh, I'm a, I'm an iconoclastic truth teller. [10:01] I don't want to have the old legacy media putting their thumb on the scale. [10:06] Whereas here we see she's putting her thumb on the scale for the Trump White House. [10:12] Yeah. [10:12] Putting her thumb on the scale for Donald Trump. [10:14] Barry Weiss has carefully crafted this brand from the moment she got in, got sideways with [10:19] the New York times and when she created the free press, that she's the iconoclastic truth teller. [10:25] She's the intellectual dark web queen. [10:28] Who's not going to, who's not going to pretend the old system of, of liberal journalism, um, where they [10:33] manipulate the news is, is, well, she's now the one playing the role as so many times these [10:40] Republicans are like, the projection is the, is all they've got. [10:44] And that's what she's, we found out that all of her stuff before the, you know, before CBS was just projection. [10:51] Right. [10:52] And it is also like, you do see, this is a woman who has worked really hard to paint herself as [10:58] someone who is like for truth and for free speech. [11:03] I mean, remember these people were all like free speech absolutists. [11:07] Oh, I remember that era and now it's, it's, um, Scott Pelley, you dared to criticize me [11:13] in a private meeting. [11:14] Fuck you. [11:14] You're fired. [11:15] Yeah. [11:16] Well, can I ask you one question? [11:17] I'm curious about something. [11:19] Don't you think that at some point as CBS is going to start, I mean, they're, they're, [11:24] they're killing the golden goose of 60, which makes over $250 million a year for the network [11:29] net profit. [11:31] It's bang up numbers on digital. [11:34] 60 does amazing numbers. [11:36] He said, Scott Pelley said it may, does billions of imprints on digital, which I thought was, [11:41] I thought can't possibly be right. [11:43] Huge, right? [11:44] But don't you think, I mean, don't you think the crowning irony is going to be here eventually [11:48] that the Ellisons are going to have their own shareholders? [11:52] Like you can't kill the money-making machine and they're going to throw Barry Weiss over [11:58] the side in the end. [11:59] Well, that's, I mean, that is the real question. [12:01] And remember, there are all these people who work at CNN who are like in mortal panic that [12:07] Barry is going to go in there. [12:09] And, you know, I mean, look, I think it's important to pull back and realize that CNN has already [12:14] gone very conservative because you'll remember Chris Licht came in and he basically tried [12:21] really hard to, I mean, that was where Scott, he sort of discovered Scott Jennings and elevated [12:27] him. [12:28] And so, and then he got fired because of this insane profile in the Atlantic where he worked [12:34] out with his trainer, despite being on Ozempic. [12:37] I mean, just an incredible profile. [12:40] One of the great profiles, go back and read it. [12:43] Just so well done. [12:44] Yeah. [12:45] And it, and it does absolutely prove the Janet Malcolm theory of the case, which is everyone [12:51] always betrays themselves sooner or later to a journalist. [12:55] But I do think like when you look at this, CBS has a problem, which is they are so no, they [13:03] have such a good reputation, or at least they had such a good reputation for being so straight [13:07] down the middle. [13:08] So, and once you do one thing to start to move it, to start to show that you've got [13:14] somebody with a finger on their scale, on the scale, you can never, you can. [13:20] It never, you can't turn, you can't unring that bell. [13:23] You know, and I also think that, that the Ellisons and Barry Weiss have a, one of two scenarios [13:28] obtains. [13:29] One is they really want to burn it down completely. [13:31] They don't care what the cost is. [13:33] That's one scenario. [13:33] And that's a disaster for shareholders. [13:36] Or disaster. [13:37] And, and, and opening the Ellisons up for shareholder lawsuits for eternity. [13:41] The other scenario is that they're working off a false predicate. [13:46] And that is that Barry Weiss can turn CBS into respectable Fox and, and, and pull a big Republican [13:54] audience. [13:55] And you turn it into diet Fox. [13:57] But my theory of the case has always been Fox viewers want all the fat, all the sugar, [14:04] all the caffeine of full Fox. [14:06] They don't care. [14:08] They don't want a lesser alternative. [14:10] That's a mistake CNN has made. [14:11] I think a lot of the opinion shows, I think it's a mistake that, that Weiss is probably [14:17] laboring under. [14:17] Because as dark as I am, I don't think that they, that the Ellisons are like, let's buy [14:23] this and burn it to the ground. [14:24] We don't want to ever make money. [14:25] Well, and also this is, right. [14:27] And this is a very expensive asset, you know, with a lot of debt that has to be serviced. [14:31] So if they're doing this to burn it down, it doesn't make a ton of sense. [14:35] Whereas like an Elon Musk, that might make sense. [14:38] I, I think that your case is proven by Joe Rogan. [14:42] So Joe Rogan has picked up a lot of the Fox news audience and he hasn't done it because [14:49] he's respectable Fox. [14:50] He's done it because he's Fox with the sort of culture stuff. [14:53] And he's also not, he's both Fox and not Fox, right? [14:57] He's this sort of populist, you know, hell. [15:02] Right, with a little more welcoming on the conspiracy theory stuff that, that some of [15:07] that Fox audience does not get as much from the network as they would like. [15:11] Because they can't, right? [15:12] Because it's, because they don't want to be sued. [15:14] Because they'll lose defamation suits for $800 million if they, if they feed them the garbage [15:20] they want. [15:21] Correct. [15:21] And I think that part of it is that Barry has done something brilliant and she continues [15:26] to reap success from it, but it is not, it's not something that you can move to some other [15:32] place, which is she did this newsletter that every rich guy in the world loved. [15:37] And I knew this because like two years ago, I was talking to a friend and she said, well, [15:42] this one and that billionaire and this billionaire and that billionaire reads the free press. [15:47] And I said, really? [15:48] And she said, oh yes, this one and that one, because she was this very thin, uh, political [15:56] view, which was Zionist, very, very, very Zionist, but also anti-tax and anti-tax, anti-cancel [16:06] culture. [16:07] Right. [16:07] Whatever that means, because they're pro. [16:10] Right. [16:10] In this day and age, who the F knows? [16:12] Anti-tax, anti, quote unquote, cancel culture from the left, but not from the right. [16:18] And also sort of socially liberal-ish, but anti-trans. [16:24] Right. [16:24] And that, very rich guys love that. [16:28] Yeah. [16:29] There, there is a subculture of rich guys in both private equity and in Silicon Valley [16:33] and hedge funds, who, and hedge funds, who think that the biggest problem in the world [16:39] today is their HR department and that they can't say the N word or the R word and Barry [16:45] Weiss made them feel better about themselves. [16:47] Mark Andreessen said that he was very excited about AI because AI never calls the HR department. [16:55] Yeah. [16:55] Yeah. [16:56] AI is going to be really expensive. [16:58] So he, yeah. [17:00] Oh, yes. [17:01] And, and, and I will tell you, I'm, I'm putting a lot of markers down on the table on this. [17:06] AI will be the biggest political issue in 2028 by an order of magnitude. [17:10] It's the biggest, I mean, I wrote this piece for the times this weekend about the commencement [17:15] speeches and people hate AI and hate AI and I don't hate it. [17:24] And, you know, I don't know what maybe billionaires can convince people that being replaced by these [17:31] By a chat bot? [17:32] Right. [17:33] But well, but also by electricity sucking, water sucking, giant, many acre large. [17:41] Oh, Molly, Molly, here's a good stat. [17:45] There's a data center in North Florida that's being proposed right now. [17:49] That is the size of 50 Walmarts. [17:52] Oh, yeah. [17:53] Oh, yeah. [17:54] It's so large. [17:55] It will require internal to the, to the plant, something like the equivalent of three counties worth of electricity around. [18:04] Oh, yeah. [18:05] How do they do it? [18:06] It's just not, the whole thing is, we are not grappling with this politically yet at, at, at the right scale. [18:12] Before we end, are you going into Florida politics now, sir? [18:17] Well, you know, I'm not going into Florida. [18:19] I'm going back into Florida politics. [18:22] Well, some, some, some friends and I have whipped up a little firm. [18:25] We're going to do some work on, on David Jolly's, external David Jolly's campaign on a, on a state super PAC for that. [18:33] But, uh, I've been getting beaten around the head and shoulders for the last several years by democratic candidates who like, can you help us on the outside? [18:41] Can you give us, can you make ads for us? [18:43] And the answer has been like, well, we don't really have a vehicle for that. [18:46] We're at the Lincoln project. [18:47] Lincoln project is still going, but we've opened a new strategic consulting firm that does media that, you know, it's my team from the Lincoln project. [18:55] And we're super excited about it and announced it a couple of days ago and the, the phone has not stopped ringing. [18:59] So we're pretty happy about it. [19:01] It's called black twirl strategies to, uh, to reference the famous pirate ship. [19:04] Are you doing this because you think that the Florida governorship can be flipped? [19:09] I do think that. [19:11] I a hundred percent believe that. [19:12] Rick well said. [19:13] It is fun and funny. [19:15] All right. [19:15] Thank you, Molly. [19:16] Look forward to seeing you next time. [19:17] Thank you.