The ‘Real Ways’ MAGA Is Now Breaking With Trump | Inside Trump's Head

This is part of the split that is going on in MAGA. I mean, a split that I see increasing on an almost daily basis. The implicit promise to MAGA was, America first, a profoundly isolationist policy. We do not want American troops anywhere. We don't want American money anywhere. We don't want it.

And certainly during the first administration showed a real inclination to turn away from the world. In this administration, A, the world has caught up with him. It is very difficult to turn away from. And also, it turns out he loves it.

This is very confusing because it's actually Saturday and we're going on a weekend jaunt which makes no sense. No King's Saturday. No King's Saturday, yes it's no King's Saturday and we are here in the studio, well we're recording this on Friday for Saturday because I guess by popular demand we are doing a third episode. What do you mean

sour face popular demand?

No.

By popular demand, people in the streets.

People in the streets. We're doing an extra episode of...

No, no, no, we're not just doing an extra episode. We have expanded from twice a week to three times a week. And so from Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays inside

Trump's head. Okay but a weekend trip I feel like it should have a different vibe for example normally you're wearing a suit jacket but today you've got well it's dress down Friday so you're wearing a cardigan one of your famous cardigans.

I've worn a suit jacket once on all of the shows that we've done.

That's true, you wore a sort of linen jacket, a linen jacket, but there was a lot of comment on Thursday or possibly Tuesday's episode because it turned out we had randomly

color-coordinated for fall. We were both in brown. Yeah, and the cardigans, as you say, it's the fall, it's the autumn. What we haven't seen is most of the episodes we've done over the summer.

So the point is, not only will you be getting extra content, you're gonna be getting extra knitwear. Extra knitwear.

Okay, so where are we going and why? Just to remind people. We don't have to spend a lot of time on it because regular people will know, but for new people... Because I lecture on why we're doing this. I don't

think you lecture and I actually don't think you mansplain, but I do think it's good context

for people as to why we're doing this differently. We are going inside Trump's head and we are going there because that's where literally everything happens in American politics, which is not customary. It usually happens in agencies, in Congress, in think tanks, yes, and there are all kinds of kinds of external factors that influence what's going on now It is extraordinary the only thing like singular the only I mean the Exclusive thing that has any bearing on anything is what's inside Trump's head

So what is inside Trump's head this weekend, Michael, as we look at the spread of No King's Protest?

Well, I think that's an...

Can I also just say one thing, and now we're going to get 100 comments saying I interrupt you. No King's Protest is a weird title. It's a negative title.

Well, also, what's it about? Who's it directed towards? It seems abstract and in some overly creative sense.

Right, and also it feels like it should be King's protest, except of course we don't want King, and that's the point of America. We left the King, but it just seems.

Also, King, to be perfectly honest, King has a kind of quaint sound to it.

Right, so it should be called something else. I think would be more effective is why don't they say, release the Epstein-Files protest?

That would get 10 million people's attention. Totally a brilliant idea. I mean, that's fantastic. But it also, it's not that it's just in the negative. It is for what? There is, what is the protest against?

Against a king, I suppose Donald Trump's king. It doesn't resonate. But yes, Epstein.

Release the Epstein Files protest. Everybody come to Washington.

10 million people.

It's bipartisan issue.

Let's do it.

How can we organize it? We're not organizers, we're journalists. We just sit here chatting.

We just chat.

We just talk. But somewhere out there is an organizer. Yeah, release the Epstein-Files protest. Everybody come to DC. Doesn't matter what your party affiliation is. We all want to know what's in the Epstein-Files. Come on, Dan Bongino. Come on, Kash Patel. You know what's in them.

But we want to know too. I don't want to knock this. This is great. Well, it's an important moment. Across the country, people turning out in their communities to say, what the fuck? And I think that that is, I mean, obviously, that is good. The question is, does it have an effect? Does it? I mean, what's inside Trump's head? This protest, No King's Protest, is not inside Trump's head. This protest, No King's Protest, is not inside Trump's head.

Well do we know that because we do know that he has a thing about crowd size because he made up the size of his inauguration crowd first time around. The second time around he didn't even have an inauguration crowd.

Well I think that there is, I think he can very, now it will be in his interest to minimize the crowd. And since the crowd is so spread out, that's easy to do. But I think you have to ask the question, and I think there are two profound questions here. Why has there been so little protest, so little pushback,

so little fundamentally objection to what has been going on for the past nine months. Then the other question is, how do you create a protest that has an effect, that has impact? And I would say, you know, and I would be delighted to be proved wrong on this, but I would say that a protest that is spread out around the country has significantly less effect than a protest that goes to Washington,

that confronts the people who you want to confront, who create a situation in which they can see you, feel you, smell you. They can't escape you. And obviously, the major protests of the modern era from Martin Luther King, I have a dream to all those people

in the middle of the civil rights, that civil rights moment arrived in Washington in the Vietnam War when people, again, came to Washington. For the Iraq War, too, under Bush, these were meaningful moments, moments in which people understood, the country as a whole understood, but also the

people in Washington understood that, man, you know, this is, you know, we're going to

have to account for this. These are American people marching in the streets. And now I think they march online. That a lot of protest has just moved online. People are engaged, arguably, 24-7 in this. But it doesn't have the impact that gathering in person does.

No.

And I think you could say, I mean, there are millions upon millions of people engaged online. I mean, I talk about this every day on Instagram and have a following. I mean, I'm stunned by how many followers I have listening to these little, you know,

a few minutes each day about Donald Trump, stunned by it. But it's the difference between a fractured social media landscape and mass media. And I think protests, I think you can compare this. I mean, no kings around the country is a fractured expression.

Whereas mass protests, so let's assume 10 million people in Washington, what kind of effect that would have? Well, that would be historic.

But wouldn't Donald Trump just ignore it? First of all, he'd probably be at Mar-a-Lago. Secondly, he'd just say, oh, they're making it up. It's not true.

I mean, you can't ignore it. That's the point about a mass protest, that there are so many people, so many literal bodies. You can't ignore it. This is not ethereal. This is not ethereal, this is not abstract, this is not virtual. This is boots on the ground in the main city.

It's sort of the equivalent of the Arab Spring in terms of just people turning out en masse.

No, and again, so that goes to the second question of why there has been no protests. And I think you're right. I think maybe that this being online and in social media makes it feel like there has been when there hasn't or there hasn't been the thing that has effect, impact, meaning.

And there's also no one person leading an opposition either.

Well, I mean, I think that that's, in times past, in large, large opposition demonstrations, there probably, there might not necessarily have been one person either. But what there were were organizers. And I would say, you know, I mean...

Well, there are organizers of the No Kings protest.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, and they've done a good job. They're just the question, the question is, is that the right job? Do they add up to a mass march on Washington, D.C.?

Or are they less than the sum of their parts?

Exactly. And I'm interested in this idea of organizing. Having never organized anything in my life, this is not this is not easy. Right. So who steps up to the plate to organize something that has this kind of impact? Right. I don't I don't know that person.

I wish I wish I did.

Well, and does it have, I mean, you think of first time around Trump won the Women's March, which I now don't know how many women went to Washington, but it was a big collegial event that people flew in for. And I mean, the last No no Kings protest had five million people. It'd be interesting to see and I'm assuming there will be many more on Saturday.

Yeah, no, I think that there may well be ten, ten million people. But as you say, there's ten million people in one place and ten million people spread out across a large country.

And also it will get covered on social media too. So that will amplify it. But I think the point is to what effect. And Donald Trump will ignore it or be doing something else. Or because he's so good at this, will steal the attention doing something else.

As we're recording this, President Zelensky is talking to him in DC. It feels very much to me like the president, knowing he's got troubles at home, the government's obviously shut down for, I think, what are we now, day 18, has turned his eye precisely

where he said he wouldn't to MAGA, which is abroad, which is what leaders always do. In Britain, whenever things were going wrong, they would always start fiddling around abroad, and it would ultimately be their downfall. And one can't help feeling there's some of that

going on here. If you're Marjorie Taylor Greene, who turns out to be doing some protesting of the Republicans herself, how would you feel about the money that's now being tossed to Argentina and Trump casually saying 20 billion, 40 billion, we're not going to notice it?

Well, no, I mean, this is this is part of the split that is going on in MAGA. I mean, a split that I see increasing on an almost daily basis. But the implicit promise to MAGA was America first, a profoundly isolationist policy. We do not want troops, any American troops anywhere. We don't want American money anywhere. We don't want it. And Trump was largely acceded to that position, and certainly during the first administration,

showed a real inclination to turn away from the world. And I think in this administration, A, the world has caught up with him. It is very difficult to turn away from. And also, it turns out he loves it.

When you're talking to people around Donald Trump, how are they saying he reacts to this kind of a protest?

Well, they're not even saying. I literally think this is not on his radar. And certainly nobody is flagging this. Right now, everyone is saying he's just euphoric. This Middle East thing was something, I mean, for a guy who kept saying, I'm going gonna stop all wars, I can do this,

I think he's completely surprised that this has turned out as well as it has. And he's riding it. And I think people around him are a little wary of the fact that he now thinks he can do anything, including sending tomahawks.

Well, he's got the peace bug now, right?

Well, he's got the attention bug, which he certainly has. But he understands, oh my god, the attention is here, and the attention is lavish.

And it's, yeah, exactly.

As you say, leaders always realize it is easier to do things abroad. As you say, Tony Blair was hated in the UK, hated and loved abroad. People still think in the US, people still think Tony Blair is the prime minister.

Well, similarly with Margaret Thatcher. She was always off on the world stage.

The Falklands made her, really.

In the end, it's always domestic politics that brings you down. And the interesting thing-

Nixon went to China in the middle of Watergate.

Right, right. Another good parallel. And it's also that thing that with Trump, you saw a more generous kind of president when he was there, lavishing praise on everybody else when he was in Egypt. You know, this guy's great, this guy's great, they've all been working really hard. These are not comments he ever makes about his own cabinet.

He's always got a kind of, you know, twist in the tail when he's talking about his own cabinet or he's simply putting them down. But actually on the world stage you saw someone who was, I hesitate to say this now, I know you're immediately going to say no, but perhaps reaching for, if there is a better self, we caught a glimpse of it when he was acknowledging this was a joint effort, it wasn't just him.

I won't directly dispute that, but I will footnote that he's on the world stage knowing nothing about the world stage. So in other instances, you know, Nixon went to China, had been studying the world stage for his entire career. You know, these are, you might say, serious people on the world stage, whereas this is a profoundly

unserious person.

Well, and I don't want to sound churlish in any way about creating any kind of moment of peace in the Middle East. But there was something very hastily put together in what appeared to be a hotel room, that kind of weird dais that they'd erected with Peace 2025.

We really don't know the details of this agreement or who has agreed to what. Now which, which and I will on my on my side be less than churlish about this and saying maybe that's his genius we got everybody to agree to whatever they

thought they were agreeing to. Right and the fact that it's a 20-point plan and we only

know the first five points is neither here nor there. I mean, maybe that is, again, Trump genius. I hesitate to say that. But the other thing is we really don't know what's going to happen or what he's going to do. So Zelensky is in the White House today. We do not know if Trump is going to be on Zelensky's side or opposing

Zelensky. And he is theoretically has had what was billed as a two-hour conversation with Putin. I'm really at, okay, I know it. If that was a two-hour conversation, that was two hours of Trump motor-mouthing Putin, and Putin just listening, and just letting it go on.

Putin just giving his inscrutable smile.

But he may be. We don't know if he is Putin's friend or Putin's enemy. And he goes back and forth. Remember that not too long ago, this is just weeks ago, he went to Alaska for what?

Yeah, a peace summit, right?

Yeah.

Wasn't it a peace summit?

Yes. And for whatever he got there, he got nothing there, and Putin got whatever there was to get.

Well he got a ride in the Beast, which everybody assumes he immediately managed to bug, and Trump somehow thought he was leaving America because he kept saying, you know, he was leaving America to go and do this. He seemed very confused. Whatever, they're back at it. If you're in Trump's head right now,

what voices are you hearing?

He hears no voices other than his own. I mean, I want to be, that sounds hyperbolic. But this is, it would be wrong to assume that there is any other voice here. And Trump himself, when asked on this question, which he has been asked many times, and he

is remarkably consistent on the answer, who do you take advice from? He says he looks like a regulus and says, only myself. But I think now he has come off this high of what happened in the Middle East, and he wants more of it.

And Zelensky said, I will nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize next year if you can bring an end to this terrible war.

Right, and so the question is how, and that has come down to the tomahawks. This is the tomahawk question.

Tomahawk missiles.

Yes. Does he give? I mean, he has certainly dangled that out there. We may have to give you the tomahawks. And then he has gone on to describe the damage that tomahawks would do.

This would be damage that they would do to Russia. And one assumes that he is saying this because that will theoretically scare Vladimir Putin. But then he says, well, maybe I'm not going to give the tomahawks. And we need the tomahawks.

So we're not going to give the tomahawks. And we need the tomahawks. So we're not going to give the tomahawks. I mean, does he even know what a tomahawk is? But what he does know is the name. It's great to say this.

The fantastic word, tomahawk.

I'm enjoying saying tomahawk.

Yeah, it's the word that could be a chant, tomahawks, Tomahawks. Yeah, like, thank you Trump, thank you Trump. It's got the same rhythm as what we heard people chanting in Israel last weekend. So maybe this is every weekend he has to go and do a peace deal. We know that he's ended seven wars or is it eight wars now. But then let's go

back to what this does on his base, in the MAGA, which is, at the very least, churlish about this. They don't like it. They don't like any aspect of this, of the fact that he might be sending Tomahawks, even the possibility of Tomahawks.

I mean, they don't like the fact that even if he has established a ceasefire and the return of the hostages, he's done this at the cost of a really very, even more than usual embrace of Netanyahu, who the MAGA people detest. So I see this as this among the growing list of issues that MAGA has a problem with.

So where does this put, when you're talking to people, and this split in MAGA is extremely interesting, where does this put J when you're talking to people, and this split in MAGA is extremely interesting, where does this put JD Vance?

Well, I think JD Vance is and can only be in one place, which is joined at the hip to Donald Trump. So anything that, in any perceived deviations from MAGA-dom by the MAGA people is going to infect J.D. Vance. We should also talk about this amount of money, 20 billion, 40 billion, that may or may not go to Argentina.

You know, a fundamental Republican principle is against bailouts. Well, we are very clearly, I mean, I don't think there's any pretense otherwise, bailing out Argentina. And very specifically, because the Argentina president

is Trump's favorite president. Right, because they have a lot in common. Apparently.

So let's just focus for a second on this MAGA split. Who is leading the sort of MAGA split? Who are the voices now that have real audience on this stuff?

Well, I mean, you know, very much Tucker. You know, I think we should spend some time. I think I said this the last time, he is worth a, he is worth all of our attention. I mean, he is worth our attention on this subject. He is a clear voice, a cogent voice,

a persistent voice, and a popular voice. I mean, there are others too. Marjorie Taylor Greene has stepped forward in a way that seems to confound everybody because she is breaking from the president in real ways. I mean, some ways that liberals are suddenly finding

like common cause with her.

Well, she's broken with him on Epstein, right? She's one of the signatories for Release the Epstein Files, led by the cross-party team of Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna. And also, she's figured out that her kids are going to have to pay double their health insurance premiums. So politics has become personal for her.

Right.

And so she now has essentially gone over to the other side in terms of the shutdown. And at least we forget the shutdown, we should come back to it. Because it is, although we seem to again ignore this in the cascade of other events, it is the central event in American politics and government at this moment.

So how do protesters tomorrow use the shutdown as a way of pointing out that right now

America isn't working? I'm not sure that's how protests, mass protests, even one spread out across the country work. You know, or certainly, I mean one of the other problems, I think you can put it this way, about a protest spread out across the country is that the message is unclear. There is no one delivering a message.

No one is going to have a dream in front of hundreds and hundreds of communities with different protests.

Right, and one of the criticisms of the Democrats at the last election was that their only coherent message, Kamala Harris's only coherent message was, I'm not Donald Trump, say no to a dictator. But you have to be for something to get people to vote for you, right?

Well, I don't know if, I mean, yes, well, I don't know if that's true or not.

Well, I think it's harder to motivate a negative vote than it is to get people to vote for something. When you see what's happening with Mamdani in New York, people are leaning into his enthusiasm, his apparent authenticity, his energy.

Well, also his specific message, the cost of living is too high.

Yeah, affordability.

Yes. No, I mean, I think that that's true. The problem with the Democrats is that none of their messages have, because they are Democrats, fundamentally bureaucratic. You know, they're fundamentally about the particulars of policy, which is all good and all necessary.

And what you need to actually run a country effectively, but it's very hard to sell it when you're up against someone whose singular talent is holding the attention to himself. So I think we could have you know 10 million people protesting no kings across the country and Donald Trump will still do something that just means that he gets the attention. So it's really a question I

you know I think what can you do that he can't compete with? That's a very good way of putting it. What can you do that Donald Trump can't out-attention you

in?

OK, and let's look at this, because one of the things should be to shut down the government. And I would have said, that is going to command everyone's attention. But it is not. But perhaps it will. And I mean the government shutdown is at a interesting point because it is

going on and on and on. And I don't see, given the positions on both sides, I mean it's suddenly, it is now articulated on win or lose. There is no compromise in the middle of this.

And you say it's not getting any attention. I'm sure it's getting attention from people who are government workers who are being treated so cavalierly. I mean, the whole decision to fire 4,000 people last week, and then the chaos that they had to undo half of those firings because they realized they couldn't manage without

them. No, absolutely and that in itself should be the major story but it is not.

Well because it turned out to be peace in the Middle East right so Russell Vought at the Budget Office who's trying to has now said they're going to try and get rid of 10,000 people during this shutdown. Again, in a normal time, that would have an incredible amount of attention, but Trump's great talent is keeping attention for himself.

Now, the Democrats, I believe, understand that the longer this goes on, the more attention it will have to get, because the more people it will directly affect. And their bet is that the person who will be held ultimately responsible

is the President of the United States, because he leads the party in power, which I think is true.

So if you were saying who's winning the shutdown at the moment, is it the Democrats or is it Trump?

I would say the Democrats by a bit, maybe by even a bit more.

And Mike Johnson seems on the back foot over Adelita Grieva, the congresswoman from Arizona.

Mike Johnson always seems on a back foot. Well, at least he's on the back foot. Poor old Mitch McConnell. Oh the guy is always in, you know, the

headlights. He is always in the headlights but at least he's on the back foot because poor old Mitch McConnell took a cropper in the Senate yesterday. That was unfortunate. But Mike Johnson's refusal to swear in the Congresswoman in Arizona is also becoming an issue.

Yeah, no. I mean, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Is an issue, will be an issue, is the issue that doesn't go away. I mean, I have said from the beginning that I thought that that should be,

that the Democrats should make that an essential issue issue of the shutdown.

Right. Unless you release the files, we're not going to open the government again. Well, maybe we have an Epstein protest. Maybe the next Epstein is around.

10 million people arriving.

Well, it's the Epstein files process. Weirdly,

the Epstein files process would get both Weirdly, the Epstein-Files process would get both across both.

Oh my God, yes.

That's what we should organize. But I very much appreciate the dress down Friday.

Well, you look like you always look. Well, I look like I always, it's just what else are you gonna wear? Since you don't have to, video no longer requires a tie and jacket.

Yeah, totally true. Totally. I think we should do a...

You know, you know this when when you went on television, the guys would be in the tie and jacket and then they're then they would be wearing pajamas or shorts or below the table.

That's so weird to me. So weird. And then of course, all that took off during COVID. All right. Well, I think we both deserve a weekend now. But I do think it's an Epstein Files protest, isn't it? Release the Epstein Files. We should fire up the MAGA base on this. Well, we should become organizers. Okay. Well, we're journalists, we're not organizers. But I think it's released the Epstein-Files protest and that's worth going to DC for.

I'll see you there.

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