Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

The Rest Is Politics: US

192. Trump’s Online Meltdown: Method or Madness?

01 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What triggered Trump's recent online posting spree?

8.317 - 32.805 Katty Kay

Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Politics U.S. with me, Cathy Kay, in a beautifully sunny Washington in which anyone living here, Anthony, ought to be calm and zen and in control because the city looks so lovely at the moment and we haven't hit the horrible humidity of summer, just like President Trump is right now. Calm and zen, Anthony.

0

32.937 - 53.725 Anthony Scaramucci

I mean, this is probably as common as Zen as he gets, like 100 tweets a night from, you know, 11 p.m. to 3 o'clock in the morning. I was sleeping then. On one Monday, and this is a few weeks back, he posted 160 times between 7 p.m. and midnight. Yeah. I don't know what we're going to talk about, but I do want to talk.

0

Chapter 2: How does Trump's tweeting reflect his state of mind?

54.006 - 67.011 Anthony Scaramucci

I do want to talk about that. And the fact that he's getting snubbed around by the judges and he's a big cry baby. I'm giving up on the Kennedy Center. Tell us what we're talking about, girl.

0

67.126 - 68.269 Katty Kay

You've hit the nail on the head.

0

Chapter 3: What legal setbacks is Trump currently facing?

68.289 - 90.764 Katty Kay

We're going to talk about that, the crazy tweeting over the weekend, and this idea that he's getting no's from a lot of people at the moment. And as he does so, he clearly is not very happy about it, and he takes it all out on Truth Social. which does not make for a very calm and zen weekend emanating from the White House. In the second half of the show, we're going to talk about California.

0

91.165 - 118.287 Katty Kay

There's a very important primary tomorrow for both the governorship and the mayor of L.A. And how are the Democrats managing to field such an amazingly lackluster election? crop of candidates. Okay, so let's start with those truth social posts. He posted more than 50 times during the course of 14 hours on Saturday. It's a very good breakdown if you want to read it. all the different posts.

0

118.347 - 137.889 Katty Kay

I mean, I was scrolling through them nonstop on Saturday, but it takes something and a certain amount of dedication to be student-like about this and sit down and actually make a note of all of the different posts that he put out there. And Harry Sisson, if you want to look at it, who is a liberal political commentator, has done it. I got a very nice printout. Here you go.

0

Chapter 4: What does the term 'YOLO Republican' mean?

137.929 - 154.649 Katty Kay

These are all the different posts. They go on for pages and pages and and pages of all the different things that Donald Trump was tweeting about. And sometimes I think, Antony, it's tempting to blow this off and think, well, this is Trump just being Trump.

0

155.71 - 178.275 Katty Kay

But we've never had in American politics or possibly in politics anywhere in the world, this direct conduit into a leader's brain and psychology and state of mind that we have when Trump puts out all of these And so I think it is super worth. You can't just say, I don't want to deal with this. This is too much.

0

178.295 - 202.539 Katty Kay

I think it is really worth all of us going through them and looking at them because they give us a sense of where he's at. And I think it's what you suggested. Trump suffered two big legal setbacks at the end of last week. A judge said that $1.8 billion slush fund for the rioters of January the 6th and any other of your supporters that you want to give money to It doesn't fly.

0

202.559 - 215.372 Katty Kay

And another judge said, the Kennedy Center, which you have renamed the Trump, Donald J. Trump Kennedy Center, Mr. President, you have to take your name off the wall. It is not the Trump Kennedy Center.

0

Chapter 5: How are California's primaries structured?

215.452 - 231.852 Katty Kay

It is only the Kennedy Center. You cannot name it after yourself. And by the way, you can't shut it down for two years either. So he had a couple of massive legal setbacks at the end of last week. And I think it sent him into a tailspin. And his frame of mind was pissed off going into the weekend about this.

0

232.293 - 248.361 Katty Kay

And if you go through the tweets, it's one long list of grievance, obsession with his legacy, anger at people saying no to him, nostalgia for the 1950s, a sense of grandiosity. I mean, it's all there in these crazy truth posts.

0

248.381 - 249.463 Anthony Scaramucci

Conspiracy theory.

0

249.443 - 256.331 Katty Kay

conspiracy theories, and you can see. It's like he's lying on a psychologist's couch and we have access to his brain.

0

256.732 - 278.117 Anthony Scaramucci

There's a great AI artistic rendition of Donald Trump on horseback wearing the ruffling uniform of a general from the Revolutionary War, clip cloppeting next to George Washington while there's a NASCAR running in front of them.

278.097 - 284.486 Katty Kay

It's just madness. And there's a space shuttle, right, above them. We'll put it up on YouTube for people to look at.

Chapter 6: What challenges do Democrats face in California's elections?

284.546 - 289.033 Katty Kay

But if you haven't looked at some of the images that he puts out, take a look.

0

289.373 - 313.33 Anthony Scaramucci

There's an expression from Southern Italy called guguts, okay? And it's derived from summer squash, okay? But it really means that the person's crazy. You know, if you say guguts, Tony Soprano used to use it in The Sopranos in the early 2000s. He used to laugh. But Trump is cuckoots, okay? But he's doing something that people should really understand. He wants to trigger people with this.

0

313.41 - 337.671 Anthony Scaramucci

This is the AI generation, the conspiracy generation. Trump is telling you a couple of things. Number one, I want to control the news cycle, nobody else. Number two, I believe, rightly or wrongly, but mostly right, that my base loves this stuff. If I'm sending out these tweets and it's triggering liberal media people around the world, my base is loving this.

0

338.392 - 343.219 Anthony Scaramucci

And I also think he's doing something that people probably don't see him doing, but I see him doing it.

0

Chapter 7: What impact does Trump's influence have on Republican candidates?

343.84 - 370.383 Anthony Scaramucci

He's preparing his supporters for the post-Iran conversation. This will be the next phase of his presidency. And, Caddy, if you look through those 40 tweets, this is the culture war presidency. He wants to go back to the culture war because he's decided that he can win the culture war. I'm going to say something. A lot of people are not going to like this. He is right about that, Caddy.

0

370.443 - 387.63 Anthony Scaramucci

The culture in the United States right now is not – A woke culture. Are there 10, 15% of the population that wants a woke culture? Maybe more than that. But it's not the bellwether of the United States. And if you disagree with me, please push back.

0

388.091 - 390.935 Katty Kay

But wait a second. First of all, let's get back to the framing of this.

0

Chapter 8: What predictions are made for the upcoming California elections?

391.096 - 403.02 Katty Kay

Because on the one hand, you're saying this is goo-goots. and crazy and nonstop sort of, I mean, I- My whole goal of this show was to get you to say goo-goots.

0

403.34 - 409.214 Anthony Scaramucci

My Italian brotherhood out on Long Island is loving the fact that you use the word with an English accent, okay?

0

409.996 - 428.71 Katty Kay

Goo-goots. I mean, and I think you're right that this comes across as crazy. I was speaking to a senior international economist at the weekend who said from a big financial organization who said serious peoples are asking questions about the president's mental health right now.

0

428.69 - 447.12 Katty Kay

We're going to be doing a whole series for our founding members, which is coming out this week on the president's health. You can become a founding member and take a listen to it, but I think it is particularly relevant at the moment. This guy is super sober, had been quite a supportive of the president's endeavors early on in the administration, and is now saying, listen,

0

447.1 - 469.294 Katty Kay

People are seriously asking about whether he has the mental capacity for the job. But at the same time, Anthony, you're saying that there is a strategy behind this. And I think you're right. There is some strategy. Some of this, I think, is knee-jerk grievances. I mean, the stuff about when the judge said to him, you've got to take your name off the Kennedy Center and you can't shut it down.

469.395 - 480.432 Katty Kay

What's his reaction? It's hardly stay and fight. I mean, it's like, okay, I'm done. He's like a child walking away from a playground, right? If you're not going to play by my rules, if I'm not going to win, I don't want to play your game anymore.

480.412 - 498.116 Anthony Scaramucci

There's a tiny bit more to that. See, so I am doing something great for the Kennedy Center. My name on the Kennedy Center is embellishing it, making it better. And I'm going to renovate the Kennedy Center. But now you've hurt my feelings. And so I'm taking these benefits away from you people.

498.196 - 519.244 Katty Kay

Yeah, it's kind of petulance. If you won't say it's mine, if you won't do it my way, you can't have any of the benefits. But so which is it? Is it crazy, all the tweeting and out of control? Or is it thoughtful, political, 9D strategy, which is what you seem to be suggesting, that there is a political strategy here?

519.665 - 537.047 Anthony Scaramucci

Well, in Trump's mind, it's 9D chess. It's probably like one and a half D checkers. But in Trump's mind, it's 9D chess. It's dominoes. Right. It's like, you know, he's not playing the game that he thinks he's playing because he's got a little bit of a Dunning-Kruger thing going on. But I want to take you back, if you don't mind,

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.