The Gathering Storm

SPEAKER_1 (0:04)

9, 12, 10, 28, 2, 23

David Rothkopf (0:17)

This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our SuperSecret Studio in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, DC and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world.

Hello and welcome to Words Matter. I am David Rothkopf. I am here as a co-host or provocateur or as they used to say in the Catskills, tumbler with Norm Ornstein, who is, as they used to say in the Catskills, the big banana of Washington. You know, you want to explain what tumbler is to them?

Norm Ornstein (1:01)

So if you want to know what a tumbler is, you can start by reading Mel Brooks' autobiography. Because Mel Brooks, as a very young man, went to the Catskills and became a tumbler. And that's somebody who's not just a comic, but who can rouse people up out of their deck chairs and get them involved in all of the antics that would go on at one of the resorts at the Catskills. You can also watch the episodes of the marvelous Mrs. Maisel that take place at the Catskills back in the 1950s when that was the place to go.

I will tell you one Catskills story, which is that when my kids were young, we always looked for a place to go over spring break. And one year, we decided to go up to the Catskills. And it was over Passover. And we get to the Catskills, and we brought down the average age by probably 50 years. But there was one other family there that were sort of in the same range. The Schumer family. Chuck Schumer, who was then a member of the house. And the Concord, one of the big resorts, said to Chuck, if you come up and give a speech, we'll let you and your family stay for Passover.

So for several days, we ate our meals with the Schumer family. I will just tell you, I don't want to recreate that experience.

David Rothkopf (2:51)

Well, I'm afraid we've run out of time. Thanks, however.

You know, that's corruption. I just want to be very clear.

Chuck Schumer shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have taken an emolument of that sort. But you know, we live in a time where corruption just means something different. Those were simpler times, Norm. Now, there's this woman, kind of an odd story, really. I won't go into great detail, but 20 years ago, she was married to Gavin Newsom. You know, Gavin Newsom, right? He was the mayor of San Francisco, and she was the first lady of San Francisco. That didn't work out. She married somebody else. That didn't work out. She kind of lived with Don Jr., Donald Trump Jr. And then when Donald Trump Jr. moved on to the next thing, he went to his dad and said, help me out here. And his dad said, okay, we'll make her the ambassador to Greece. And so they made her the ambassador to Greece. Her name is Kimberly Guilfoyle, and she caused headlines for a variety of reasons, strange outfits, strange friends, people that she would be in the meetings with. But in the past couple of days, we have learned something mind-boggling and new that just says just how deep the corruption has sunk in this administration, where apparently Kimberly Guilfoyle, with a large American Express bill, frankly, it was $100,000 American Express. I would have had a hard time. I wouldn't have even called somebody, I got $100,000 American Express bill, I would have collapsed dead on the floor.

Norm Ornstein (4:33)

What I didn't know about that, just let me say, is that plastic surgeons let you charge on American Express.

SPEAKER_1 (4:39)

Well, that could have been it.

David Rothkopf (4:41)

But so in any event, so she gets this big bill. And so what does she do? Like you would do, you'd go to your penny jar in the kitchen, add up the pennies, send them in it. What she did was she called up a donor to Trump and said, hey honey, can you give me 100,000 bucks and I'll help you out with some legal issues that you've got in the government.

Now, this was in the Wall Street Journal. In another time, if this story ran, she would have stepped down and immediately the Department of Justice would have announced an investigation. Neither of those two things has happened. She is happily ensconced in Greece.

And we now know that ambassadors to the United States are for sale.

They're expensive, but don't think it's a cheap hobby, but they're expensive. And I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on this.