The Future of Senate Leadership

This is top of his agenda. This is taking more time within the White House than any other issue . This is more important than the war. This is more important than immigration. This is more important than the midterms Washington is the legacy that I leave . It's a particular Trumpian response to it 's him imposing himself . He's an inescapable, unignorable , ubiquitous . He is creating a Washington that will forever evoke his name , Donald Trump . I was here Michael . Joanna, you're in the UK in your childhood bedroom again? Well, this is not my childhood bedroom. This is my father's study. It would be weird if I had all these cricketing almanacs in my childhood bedroom. I'm back in the UK . What is in your childhood bedroom? I think we might be curious about that. You know what's in my childhood bedroom? Just piles and piles of books actually. I now look back and think, actually, I did do something as a kid. I read a lot , I read a lot. So the only thing that's really remaining is books . So today we're going to do, well, of course, we're going to do the Iranian deal deal. This is even the word deal. Is it a deal or is it just a deal? No, it's a memo of understanding and I think you and I should have a memo of understanding. I don't know what would be in it, but I think we could have a memo of under standing. And we're going to do, of course, the UFC fight and the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of the United States of America, which apparently is now going to become a celebration of Donald Trump . And then the rem Washington , D. C., which is also apparently becoming a monument to Donald Trum p and his fight with the Republican leadership in the Senate. Why he would go to fight go to battle with his allies? Well, it is Donald Trump. And I would like to discuss Pete Hegseth's change of wardrobe. He dismounted his plane , wearing a sort of plaid shirt and a strange sort of tabard on top of it. And a trucker hat, a trucker hat, Michael. This is a man who went to Princeton and who was a co host on weekend Fox News, and he's wearing a trucker h at and a weird plaid shirt trying to look as if he's come straight from the Iowa State Fair . Great, well let's do it. And just to remind you, please hit the subscribe button. We are trying to get to seven hundred thousand subscribers by the end of the month. We're almost there actually. I think we might get there . So if you haven't subscribed, please do and share the podcast with your friends . There's always lots to discuss in it. You may feel free to shout at whatever device you're listening to this podcast on or watching this podcast on and disagree with us. And please put your comments in the comment field. We love to read them. and I've not been as good as I usually am at answering them, but I'm getting back into the rhythm of it and I hope to join our premier conversations again once the podcast drops when I'm back on American time zones. Michael, do we need a memo of understanding? I like the idea of just memos of understanding. What are our understandings of anything really? A memo of understanding that appears to understand nothing or no one understands each other or there is nothing to understand or that's what we have. What has this war produced ? It has produced neither neither peace nor an advantage to us nor nor anything else that gets us anything except a memo. We now have a memo. We have a memo. I mean, nobody wants a memo. Nobody likes memos. , it's interesting because I had a conversation yesterday with a White House person and I was trying to pin them down because this certainly seems like nothing is what it seems like. It seems like an embarrassment . It seems like they have the Donald Trump has acceded to the inevitable , the Iranians have squeezed him and won. I mean, that's what it seems like. So I pressed someone in the White House and I said , Okay, come on , give me the give me the bottom line on this. I mean, how are people in the White House seeing this ? And this person says , and I quote , It is what it is . Now I can't think of a more depressing interpretation of the end of a war. It really is a capitulation . It is what it is , and it is obviously nothing . So here we are . Well, here we are. We're in a worse position than we were when we went to war, we're billions of dollars , tons of arms worse off than we were . And Trump promised total , you know, he wanted total surrender by the Iranians. And in fact, that 's what we appear to have done. We're in a worse position than we were before we started the war. I mean, I think it is. And there's a lot of people trying to parse this and they're parsing it in a way that certainly recognizes that we're not coming out with anything much on this . But I actually think that most of the parsing kind of gives Trump slightly the benefit of the doubt. Well, it's not what he wanted. It's not what he said he was going to get , but it is at least an end and at least the strait of Hormuz open . But so I don't think anybody has quite gotten to the real nut of this, which is that we are paying to open the strait of Hormuz So they closed straight of hormuz and in order to open it, we have given them what we've been that we've refused for years to give them, which is all of the The Iranian money that we have that we have frozen that was that existed in U. S. banks, which has been frozen. Now we are saying, okay , you know, uncle, we're going to give you this money if you just open the street . So we have bribed them to open the street. This is could there be a worse outcome ? Well, there could be a worse outcome. I mean, the one thing you can say is that the loss of American soldiers lives has been really limited here. I mean, it's still devastating of course, , to the families involved . But Michael, what I want to know , what is going on inside Trump's head here? He flies off to the G seven, he announ ces that the war is over . The G seven the heads of the G seven are all like, Oh, Mr President, you're brilliant. Her marvelous resolution. Meanwhile, they're all shaking their heads at each other. Does he know that? Does he know this is a total capitulation that it's in effect a surrender? Yeah, no, I think that that again makes the that's the fallacy that Trump has self awareness . He has no self awareness. So this is just finished . I mean, and I think he has the capacity to block this out. This is in the past. It's over with you know, no regrets, no second guessing, no thinking what I should have done instead of what I did , which is why which is what kind of makes Donald Trump Donald Trump . There is there is no at no point does he question himself . Ryan Reynolds here from Mid Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for fifteen dollars a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities, so do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants sw itch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mint mobile dot com slash switch. Upfront payment of forty five dollars per three month plan equivalent to fifteen dollars per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full pr ice plan options available, taxes and fees extra feeful terms at mint mobile. com. And that's what I mean, I think it will just be, I think we won't see this again. We now have a sixty day deadline to finish to get a final agreement, which will never happen in sixty days. It won't happen in ninety days. It won't happen in one hundred twenty days. It will just roll down and and will essentially be forgotten. So we will what we have now is what we're going to get . There will be no there will be no real agreement on the Iranian nuclear capacity . The Strait of Hormuz will be open, but we have basically tacitly agreed that they'll be able to charge fees for the passage to the Strait of Hormuz, which was never done before. And most of all , is this most of all? Well, well certainly it's a significant a significant outcome. The Iranian regime stays in place . And I want to make a point about this because another point which I think nobody is making , which is that there was an opportunity to change the face of Iran and the Middle East. And that occurred last December when masses of Iranians took to the street and Donald Trump said, if you if you shoot them, if you threaten them, we're going to come and get you, which he did not do . That was the moment in which real change on a historical level was possible, and Donald Trump punted . And so just to go back to, I think the fundamental point is that he doesn't know how to do this. He's an incompetent in this respect, I'm in many respects , but certainly in terms of foreign policy he blew this at every point . Everything that was that could be done wrong, he did wrong. And here we are. Well, and do you remember when he truth socialed out to the Iranian protesters, help is on the way. Is this what he meant by help? He's now paying the Iranians reopen the Strait of Formuz, as you just said , and the regime changed, well it has the leadership has been changed, but it appears even harder than it was before. Yeah, no, he has solidified the regime . So the exact opposite. So nothing here . And so the question the bet he is now making is that people will forget about this or they will forget about it enough by the time the midterms come around . And in a way, this is also a cynical to the war , which is, okay, you know, we got to end it now because it's making me look bad . So forget about whatever goals that we had because the overriding goal is that I not look bad . Will he pass it, do you think as a success? I mean because that he does have that capacity to just say things . How am I even asking that? Okay, he'll tell everybody we won. It was a huge success. Yes, everything that he does is always and it' doesnt matter what it is, how terrible , how bankrupt, all those bankruptcies . It is everything is a success and he manages, I mean, it's a kind of a modern life lesson. You know, you just say it enough and enough people appear to believe it. I wonder what they made of Pete Hexeth coming down the stairs of his plane to a NATO summit wearing a plaid shirt and a trucker hat . I mean, I've never seen anything quite so weird. And given the sort of hassle that JD Vance and Trump gave Zelensky when he turned up in the Oval Office in his black fatigues , his black suit, but you know, as he said, he's never going to wear a suit until the war in the Ukraine is done . Hagseth sort of sallied down the steps as if he was going to the opening of the Iowa State Fair. It remains a mystery to me. I think it remains a mystery to most people how all of these clowns are tolerated . And maybe they're not, I think and I think actually that is part of what's going on now is that the American people see these see the people who surround Trump and realize that they are at the very least unfit for the jobs that they have , and that this again, one more thing that contributes to everything that is going wrong about Donald around Donald Trump. And nothing, I think it's important again again and and again to make this point . Nothing is going well for Donald Trump. Donald Trump just lost the war, but he's losing he loses. He is losing everything . And that's why we're going into a midterm election that I think everyone has expects and has a right to expect will be a catastrophe for Donald Trump. Okay, so let me ask you this though. Is he winning was UF C on the torn up south lawn of the White House actually a win for Trum p. I know a lot of a lot of people thought, Oh, this is terrible, but in terms of the culture wars in terms of the culture wars, I don't know. In terms of in terms of the culture , that is to say the entertainment culture . Yeah , I mean and and we're we're also going into this, you know, the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the United States of America, which is now becoming a kind of Trump show all about Trump . And I think that he sees he sees this. He sees he sees the advantages here, the advantages of a spectacle . You know, I can't run the government, but okay, I can put on a show . And remember, this is a key part of Donald Trump of Donald Trump's skill set and his identity. I mean, he is a promoter. I mean, I think I've discussed this before that I once asked him what he would be. What's the best job you could ever conceive of yourself having ? And he said as a sports promoter . And I think that I think he is now falling back on that , I can do this. The other stuff is complicated , the economy, complicated, immigration , complicated, war , complicated , but damn it, I can put on a show. And there's another aspect of this of Donald Trump here, which is that he genuinely believes and he may not be wrong that he can channel the tastes of the American people. And he has always thought that. I mean, the buildings that he puts up and the gold that he encrusts , the casinos in Atlantic City, even though they went bankrupt . The fights that he has promoted, the wrestling that he has that he has been involved with. Now the U FC and of course reality television. I mean he has, I mean there is he has demonstrably channeled the taste of the American people . So can is he falling back on that now and will that have a positive effect for him? Well, I think he's certainly falling back on it now . Will it have a positive effect? You know , yeah, well maybe I don't know. It's hard to imagine that that UFC fight on the lawn of the White House sends a sends a positive signal to enough of America to help him out of the hole that he's in. But you know, God knows . I mean, I don't understand the UFC thing anyway. So that's my limitation and and and Donald Trump's advantage. He does see this . Well, and I can't figure out whether or not we're just looking at this through the lenses of elitist glasses and actually for a certain group of Americans, certainly the group of Americans that voted him in , some of whom had also voted for President Obama incredibly , but you know, watching these fighters padding their way barefooted through the tiled fl aw ofs the White House actually feels egalitarian in some way that appeals to people . And you know, having monster energy on top of the ninety foot claw actually speaks to people and makes them feel part of Washington. And this whole thing that politicians don't do anything for us. I'm not part of that world. It's so separate, whether or not he's trying to close that gap actually might be effective. So let's just talk about how he's using Washington as a larger stage set here. Because obviously we've talked incessantly about reality television. We did a special on it recently . It's an incredibly interesting background for a president. Now he appears to be taking the whole of Washington City and turning it into Trump town. Well, I have some insight here from the White House , which is that this is top of mind for him. This is top of his agenda. This to him is taken this is taking more time within the White House than any other issue. This is more important than the war. This is more important than immigration. This is more important than than the midterms and thinking about thinking about that. This is this is his primary focus , what I can do for Washington. Washington is the legacy that I leave . You know, and it's curious because Donald Trump doesn't think about legacy in the way that other presidents do. And you might conclude that therefore he doesn't think about legacy. That is the legacy in law, the legacy in the structure of government, the legacy legacy as an abstraction. But so what he does is think about this is legacy in concrete . I am going to change things that I am going to create a physical change here . And it's a particular Trumpian response to it's him imposing himself. He's in an escapable , unignorable , ubiquitous . I mean, so there will be he will , in his mind now , he is creating a Washington that will forever or at least for the next decades or a hundred years evoke his name , Donald Trump . I was here. No one will ever forget that I was here. This is central to him. This is what is in his head now. I have less than two and a half years in order to accomplish this. And we are going to spend a good part of every day in this White House addressing this. And the efforts of his opponents and the caretakers of Washington to frustrate this , to slow it, to impede it , to deprive him this right to put his name on everything has become these are significant political issues for him, more significant in fact than the war in Iran. So the first most obvious one is the ballroom, the East Wing that was traditionally home of the First Lady . We know there is no real first lady at the moment, certainly, as far as we can tell, present in the White House , so that got ripped down , we have reflecting pool , the sort of long strip of water that he wanted to repaint , I guess as American flag blue, but which has unfortunately gone American green . It's full of algae, which the White House is saying is because that's just algae that was sort of populating itself in the pipes while they were waiting for this pool to be done. And let's not forget that this giant reflecting pool was not put out to tender, it was not given to people who understand how to do this. It was given to a building company that Donald Trump has a relationship with that has nevertheless never done anything like this before. Again, my analogy, it's like inviting a dentist in to do cardiology. Algae is a lefty thing . Algae is a lefty thing. What does that mean? Is it algae or algae? It's in the United States it',s algae, but go with go with it. What do you mean it's a lefty thing? What does this mean algae is a lefty thing? Well, that's what he's blaming. You look at it, it's blaming this. That's the joke in the White House, that they're blaming that they're blaming it on that algae is a lefty conspiracy . Well it's not I mean when you go down to the pool and I've talked to two people who've gone down to it over the last couple of days, it's definitely green. It's got algae in there and the White House is definitely looking for more people to come and help sort this problem out because they can't have july the fourth and the reflecting pool being green and not blue, especially given Trump's nailed his colors to the mask and said I want American flag blue. Right. And of course this makes him so he blames this. This is this is a problem. This is not a problem of nature. This is a problem of conspiracy against him. They're putting tons of really powerful sort of bleach in it, basically to get rid of it. Who knows if it's going to be successful? All right, so we have the reflecting pool which at the moment appears to be problematic. Let's say it's not worked out exactly as they 're not reflecting what he wanted it to reflect. Right. In fact, it's reflecting his incompetence . And then we have arch which blocks the view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery, which of course he doesn't want to think about Arlington Cemetery because he's full of suckers and losers and he managed to avoid going to do any kind of military service because he had bone spurs. I would only slightly defend him on that basis that a generation avoided military service because of our bone spurs. Did you have bone spurs? I had, I think I had flat feet , which I do have , actually . But at a certain point in time , although actually then when I was when this might have been relevant to me, then they converted the draft to a lottery in which I would have actually have been drafted except that as soon as they converted it to a lottery, which meant that everyone would be drafted on a fairly equitable basis , then they got rid of the draft. Let me just get this absolutely clear because I know this is going to provoke all sorts of comments , you in fact avoided the draft because of timing. By the time you would have been drafted, they'd stop the draft. Exactly. Okay , but it was there. The sequence was because everyone was avoiding the draft because of bone spurs , they then changed the law to a lottery system . And if you got a low number you were drafted. If you got a high number, then you probably would not be drafted, but that was a more equitable arrangement. Therefore, the people who could afford to go to college and gradu ate school and have doctors write them letters . They were instead of them being the ones who got excused, you would be excused on this more equitable basis of a lottery. You would either have to go with urine because of a low number or perhaps not go because of a high number. But at that point , that was exactly at the point at which they got rid of the draft because for probably precisely that reason , because the sons of people with power might be drafted. Okay , so we have Brand Washington, Trump slapping his name all over Washington, though happily his name has come off side of the Kennedy Center. But that's an interesting thing too, because they haven't they have not unveiled yet the lack of his name . So the curtain is still up, so you can't see that Trump's name is no longer there. Do you think that curtain remains up? I mean, the whole center now seems to be mothballed for extensive work, which he claimed he wanted to do, but now he's pushed it off to onto the government to finish off. I mean, he is the government but the court has just asked for a plan to keep the Kennedy center open. So this is another this is one another of those things, which is filling him apparently with rage. I mean, everything fills him with rage. But this particularly everybody trying to get in the way of his remake and rebranding. And by the way, that's what they're calling it in the White House , the rebranding of Washington . And he's referring to to these project s that he's putting up as my monuments. You know, there is this whole this whole kind of Caesar kind of thing, this Roman kind of kind of kind of things, which is obviously the spect acles, the UFC fighting , you know, is this , you know, Roman like spectacle obviously building these buildings, these victory arches Roman in feeling and sentiment . And there was a thing there, I mean, he did a let me see if I if this there was a post I think last night which is he was quoting a presidential historian, somebody named D ave King, I'm not exactly sure who that is . But so his post was this Dave King said Donald Trump is without question the, most powerful man that the planet has ever known by a long way . Historically, powerful people were characterized by brutal conquest and the fear that they instilled in the populations that came under their influence. Common names that would come to mind are Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Ganges Khan, Attila the Hun , Napoleon, and more recently , Hitler, Mao and Stalin . Now , so Trump quotes this and adds sounds good to me , whichich it actually reminded me remember when the Beatles said they were more popular than Jesus? So he's kind of saying yes, he's more popular than Hitler . Here we are. Or Stalin, or Stalin. Why I mean, Stalin , you know, in terms of the monstrous ranks right up there with Hitler, if not beyond. I mean , who is Dave, who is Dave King ?' Whs evero heard of a historian who calls himself Dave, by the way ? I mean, that just seems it seems super doubtful, but listen, I want to come on to my friend . Of course I',ve never really met him, but I feel that if I did meet him, I would prefer him , I would prefer him above other Republicans , John Thune, who's struggling to keep the Senate together . Can we just talk about this ? We can, we can certainly talk about, but before, let's talk about your preference for John Thune. Well, I just think that John Thoon is one of those people that, you know, when Trump got caught with his grab and by the pussy tape, John Thom was like, This guy's got to stand down. He's not one of us. He is not suitable to be president of the United States and how right he was, how incredibly right he was. And this is the guy that took down Tom Dashley. Yeah, I mean, I think I think you're giving him perhaps some credit that he doesn't necessarily deserve. Hold on. He's at least he's not an election denier , right? And he stood by those. I'm not saying that he's the most liberal of Republicans. Absolutely not. But at least he seems decent. Well he is, function ally an election denier. He certainly didn't vote for Trump's removal on this basis. I mean , I mean, january sixth came, you know, they could have the Senate could have removed him. The Senate could have could have ensured that Trump would never be able to become president again or hold any office. John Thune was happy to go along with other Republicans who were not about to do that to Donald Trump. Totally, totally fair point, totally fair point , but let's just talk about the fact that Trump has now got him in a kind of chokehold. I was just trying to move you to say that you that your affection for him was because he looks the part of a decent republican . Well, he looks presidential in a way that Donald Trump , whether or not you see him as a bison or a giant shrimp, or however you see Donald Trump with his mouldy hay hair and his peculiar skin and his swollen tree like legs at this point , he seems more presidential than that. Yeah, no, no , the guy is great looking . So but let's frame frame the issue , which is that Donald Trump everything is a crisis around the guy right now. Nothing is going well for him . Everything is politically to his detriment at this moment. So at this moment, instead of trying to make sure his allies are his allies . He is directly attacking the leadership in the United States Senate, the Republican leadership. I mean basically basically John Thun has said John Thun, who's the majority leader in the in the in the republic in the Senate , has said has said there's there's no circumstance on which he would agree to get rid of the Senate filibuster. Donald Trump is saying you have to get rid of the Senate filibuster. So he's putting John Thoon in a pretty difficult , if not politically untenable situation . So why would he do this at this point And I don't know the answer to that. I do know that the background here is John Thoon Mitch McConnell's person . So John Thone is in his position because Mitch McConnell put him there. There was a kind of group of Senate leaders around Mitch McConnell who were very much a thorn in the side of Donald Trump. And Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell came to have a terrible relationship , so terrible that they actually stopped speaking to each other . So and John Thune basically to Donald Trump in Trump's head is just an extension of that relationship. So but so instead of and this is a particularly trumpian thing, instead of putting saying, okay, let's put that aside . I really need these guys at this point . He's not putting it aside because he can't put anything aside . This is in his head , hey, I hate Mitch McConnell and therefore I hate John Thune. And I am and that is going to be above any other consideration , even any other political consideration that might be to my advantage or that I might need . You know, remember, it is perfectly possible that the midterms will come around and the Democrats will win the House and will win the Senate and that there might be an impeachment and there might be a trial in which he would be dependent. His life and career would be dependent on the support the Republican leadership in the Senate . But is that anywhere on his mind ? It isn't. So can you just explain for people what Trump actually did this week with Jay Clayton , who he decided he was going to put up as the permanent not the acting head of the Office of National Intelligence. So he put up Bill Poulte to be the acting head, Bill Pulte, who doesn't even who has less who has less likelihood of being able to run that department effectively than you and me, he's got less experience with intelligence than you and me . And both Republicans and Democrats do not want him anywhere near the intelligence office where he would oversee eighteen different intelligence agencies, including the FBI, and including the CIA, et cetera, et cetera . So Trump then said, I'm going to put up Jay Clayton. Jay Clayton was running the Southern District of New York Explained for people what's happened . He was the Justice Department prosecutor in the southern district. He was the U. S. Attorney in New York, yes Which is a job that Rigi Giuliani once had. Yes, no, and it's , you know, I mean an incredibly powerful job and and he was one of the prosecutors , you know, this is in Trump's in Trump's takeover of the Justice Department . One of the ways he's done this is to put his his guys in these positions, guys who are abjectly loyal to Donald Trump, and Clayton is one of those guys , but Clayton is somewhat more credential than Bill Poult i, for instance , and was pretty much it was pretty much guaranteed and there was a pretty much a bipartisan consensus that they would approve clay Clayton for the NIA job . And but Trump then in a fit of pink pulled this and here I can't exactly figure out the logic of this, but he is basically saying I'm not going to I'm not going to give you I'm not going I'm not going to submit this nomination until until you get rid of the filibuster and you pass there are a couple of key pieces here of legislation , includ most of all his voting reform, which would not be reform at all, but which would be a changing changing voting rules. This is his Save America Act . Yeah . So that would give him more control over the midterm voting. And it would ensure that people had to turn up with photo ID to vote and all sorts of restrictions for people actually voting . None of which have ever been problems before, because as we know, there's very little evidence of fraud in American elections, something which Donald Trump keeps banging on about, even though we know it's not true. Yes, and we should we should we should get to that because that remains I mean we should begin to come back to that again and again and again because that is a central threat . That is the way he is running. That is his campaign for the midterms . So his campaign for the midterms is not to convince people they should vote for Republicans , but his campaign for the midterms is to campaign against the election itself. That is such a good perspective on this. Just to return to that point about the Senate is I don't understand why he's done this. This is just his peak . I'm going to take my marbles and go home if you don't give me what I want. And apparently he did it from France, as we know, he's been staying for the G seven summit first in Eviam Macron very cleverly enticed him to stay the entire duration of the summit, which he doesn't normally do. Normally at some point he pretends he's much too busy and has to hair back to Washington, but Macron enticed him and cajoled him to stay with a fancy state dinner at Versailles, which I'm sure will give Trump even more ideas for his own ballroom . But it was in the middle of the night that apparently he sent my friend, Jonath a memo saying I've changed my mind about Jay Clayton and also that you have to approve whoever succeeds Jay Clayton first before you can take Jay Clayton's vote to the Senate before he can have his confirmation hearing. Yes, and that makes more sense because he has had this enormous problem getting his approval on the U . S. attorneys he's he's wanted , you know, we gone those the coderie of Trump women who were who were put in place in New Jersey and in Virginia and then who were who the courts threw out. Right. So Lindsey Halligan in Virginia and Elina Harba in New Jersey . Yes. And so they couldn't get those either of those appointments approved by the Senate because there is this there is this thing that you need the approval a Senate tradition . You need the approval of the of the sitting senators in those states for the appointment of the prosecutor in those states . And so that didn't happen in Virginia and in New Jersey because both of these people Lindsey Halligan and Alina Haba completely unqualified , just total Trump toadies. So the Sen ators there in those states held back their approval. So now Trump is basically saying and this is another diss of the Senate . So this particular tradition, this particular privilege or piece of power that senators have , he wants that done away with. So Jonath an, I can't even begin to imagine the conversations that the John Thewites in the Senate, and I guess there are fewer of them than there were having with each other about how is this man behaving like this? What is the logic here? We are going to lose our seats. And of course, Trump had actually said to Christine Noome at one point before he appointed her homeland security secretary that she should run against Thunder. So again, this vituperative part of his nature, the retribution he seeks . They've been having these conversations now for the better part of ten years . This is nothing new. Trump is a dick . They can't stand them . They have to , you know, they just have to , you know, sit there in somewhat passively or somewhat passively aggressively and and wait for his particular ire at any given moment to pass, but and they have , you know, I I was going to say that they have learned to live with him , but I'm not sure that that is true. I think he has basically undermined everything that they feel about their own their own job sense of self worth, identity . And you know, and I think that they must look back now to twenty twenty or twenty twenty one when that the january sixth, the post january sixth impeachment took place . And think why were we so Such weaklings then and the answer would be because they could not have in a lifetime predicted that Donald Trump would emerge from the ignomine e of january sixth to become the president again. It is an absolutely remarkable journey. So do you think that John Thune survives as leader of the Senate? Does he hang on? Well, he can only hang on if they if the Republicans have control of the Senate and that's in the balance. Do you think he goes before the midterms? No, I don't. I think he does hang on. Yes. We should put a bet on it. We should go to the betting market to go to Kalshe and what's the other one polymarket, which of which John Jr. is happily an advisor to both of them. Th Moughichael, I think we have some limericks. We have some limericks and we have a poem. Edits The once was a praise with senility whose organs had lost all utility . So much for his sex life, perhaps in the next life and his polling fl just like his virility . Very good. And then Garfried, we've got one from our Limerick Laureate . There once was a don on display who took being watched for cash . With aides brushed aside he would govern by truth and rule in his own hollow way . We love your limerics, we love your poems, we love your artwork . I'm sorry I'm sucking a cough sweep because I've really had a bad cough and a hoarse voice all week but I'm definitely recuperating . Michael will be back on Saturday with another episode of Ins ide Trump said . Fantastic. We will see you then. Are you back in the United States of America on Saturday ? No, I am staying in Europe for another week. I'm staying in Europe for another week. I'm going to the Can Lion Advertising Festival to whip up business for the Daily Beast. Fantastic . We'll have a good time , but we'll see you on Saturday. Yeah , I will see you on Saturday. Thank you, John, Ryan , Heather , Rachel , and Neil, as always. So the good news is we have so many Be ast Teer members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.