The Daily Beast Podcast

Tina Brown tells all about her shocking experience being named in the newly unsealed Jeffrey Epstein case files, revealing how Jeffrey Epstein and his allies frantically tried to “neutralize” her and shut down The Daily Beast after her explosive reporting with Conchita Sarnoff blew open his web of abuse. In a gripping conversation with Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty, Brown recounts the panic inside Epstein’s circle, the chilling legal threats from powerhouse firms, the duplicity of social fixer Peggy Siegal, and the moral rot of an elite “club” that protected its own even after the truth was in plain sight. She reflects on the pre-#MeToo culture that dismissed victims, the powerful names orbiting Epstein—from Bill Clinton to Ehud Barak—and the industrial scale of exploitation enabled by Ghislaine Maxwell and recruiter Jean-Luc Brunel. It’s a bracing defense of investigative journalism, a warning about the corrosive power of extreme wealth, and a behind-the-scenes look at how close this story came to being buried—so what else is still hidden in the millions of unreleased files? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles unpack the spiraling fallout from the Epstein files, Ghislaine Maxwell’s calculated silence, and the widening circle of elites caught in the “Epstein class,” before turning to something even more alarming: the Trump administration’s brazen willingness to lie in plain sight. From the El Paso airspace shutdown and the balloon-versus-drone fiasco to Fox News alumni now running Cabinet departments at odds with one another, they examine whether the chaos is incompetence—or a deliberate governing strategy built on fear, loyalty tests, and all-or-nothing stakes. As prosecutions stall, investigations fizzle, and reality itself seems negotiable, Wolff argues that the disorder may be the point—and that the risks are existential. Is this simply dysfunction, or is there a dangerous method behind the madness that we’re only just beginning to see? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Wolff steps inside the chaos swirling around Trump World—from Wolff’s bombshell federal lawsuit against Melania Trump, which he says could finally force sworn answers about the Trump–Epstein relationship, to the extraordinary legal fight over where the First Lady actually lives. As Wolff argues that anti-SLAPP laws may become a frontline weapon against what he calls the White House’s assault on free speech, he and Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty dissect the implications of Melania’s alleged full-time life in New York, her separate Trump Tower apartment, and the branding empire she’s quietly building. The conversation then widens to what Wolff portrays as a second administration defined by loyalty over competence: election denier Kurt Olsen rising to oversee election security, Pam Bondi’s combative Hill performance, and the bizarre El Paso airspace shutdown involving secret lasers, drone claims, and bureaucratic bedlam. Is this a White House tightening its grip—or a government spinning into incompetence so profound it can no longer explain itself? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Daily Beast’s Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty speaks with Professor Scott Galloway about his provocative new campaign, “Resist and Unsubscribe,” a call for consumers to hit what he calls the “soft tissue” of the Trump era—Big Tech’s revenue growth. Galloway argues that the only force Trump truly listens to is the market, and that even small acts—canceling Amazon Prime, downgrading ChatGPT, ditching Uber—can send outsized signals to CEOs and shareholders if done collectively. In a wide-ranging, fiery conversation, he explains why he’s selling his Apple stock, confronting corporate leaders he says privately agree with him, and betting that 10 companies controlling 40 percent of the S&P represent an Achilles’ heel for political power. From ICE protests to crypto grift, AI-fueled layoffs to the “manosphere” wobbling on Trump, Galloway lays out a theory of economic activism designed to rattle boardrooms before it rattles Washington—so can unsubscribing from a few tech platforms really shake the most powerful men in America? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to focus on one of Donald Trump’s most revealing tools: the telephone. Drawing on decades of firsthand experience—from Trump’s landline calls to New York Magazine in the 1990s to rambling, unsolicited calls as president—Wolff explains why Trump is almost never off the phone, why he hates email and paper trails, and how calling isn’t about exchanging information so much as asserting dominance, rehearsing grievances, and never being alone. It’s a portrait of a man who governs, leaks, vents, and connects almost entirely by voice—using the phone as both comfort object and command center—and a revealing look at how Trump’s constant talking shapes his politics, his relationships, and his presidency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.