By BRUCE LOWITT
(Partial transcript of a November 5, 2026, meeting at the White House, two days after the midterm elections. The recording was made by a now-former White House Chief of Staff, who requested anonymity, two hours before she submitted her resignation.)
Vice President JD Vance: “Fuck it. Forget it!”
President Donald Trump: “Fuck what?”
Vance: “Fuck you.”
Trump: “Me?”
Vance: “Fuck your office.”
Trump: “What’s wrong with my office?”
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles: “What’s right with your office?”
Trump: “Seriously?”
Wiles: “Who decorated it? Croesus? Midas? You’re going to go down in history for being as greedy as those guys.”
Trump: “No one in history is greedier than me.”
Vance: “That’s not what I meant. I meant fuck it.”
Trump: “What? Why?”
Vance: “The presidency.”
Trump: “What’s wrong with it? I can do anything I please and nobody can …”
Vance: “But I’ll never get it.”
Trump: “Because?”
Vance: “Because of you. Have you noticed the midterm results? You told people to vote like you’re on the ballot and they fucking did. They voted you out two years early. I’ve been your guy since two years ago and now, no matter what I say or do, we’ll be joined together at the hip. You’ll be a fucking anchor around my waist. Besides, I can’t separate myself from you because nobody listens to me. No one ever has.”
Trump: “Since when?”
Wiles: “I think I can answer that. Since February twenty-eighth of last year. That was …”
Trump: “National Public Sleeping Day? Hah, I nailed that one.”
Vance: “No, that was the day you started bombing Iran for no fucking reason except Netanyahu sold you on it, and the day after I told you for the tenth or twentieth time that it was a bad idea, that once you started you’d never figure out how to stop and, by the way, that I reminded you Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz in a heartbeat.”
Trump: “What the fuck do you know. This war’s going to be over as soon as …”
Vance: “As soon as Newsom or Ossoff or Beshear or Warnock or Booker or Shapiro or Pritzker or whoever the fuck the Dems want to run against us wins the presidency in twenty twenty-eight. Hell, they could run Krusty the Clown against us and he’d probably win, given all the shit we’ll be swimming in the next two years.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: “Hey, now wait a minute …”
Trump: “No, you wait a minute. In fact, wait outside. I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.”
Hegseth: “What surprise?”
Vance: “Just go, Pete.”
(Footsteps, door opening and closing)
Vance: “So he’s gone, right? Back to Fox News?”
Trump: “Hell, no. He doesn’t have any ‘friends’ at Fox now. But Home Shopping called. With that body and that ass, they’d love for him to sell their workout equipment. Can’t you just see him working up a sweat on a pushing-pulling thing?”
Vance: “Pushing-pulling?”
Wiles: “He means a rowing machine.”
Vance: : “I’d pay to see that.”
Trump: “I have something else in mind for you.”
Vance: “Oh, this oughta be good.”
Trump: “How”d you like to be my new Secretary of War?”
Vance: “Aree you out of your fucking …”
Trump: “No, listen. First of all, it stops being my war.“
“Vance: “Like I said, fuck you.”
Trump: “Wait. Second of all, you end it. Give ’em whatever they want to open the Strait of Hormel.”
Wiles: “Hormuz.” (Mutters: “moron”)
Trump: “Whatever. Just separate me from Iran. It won’t be my war anymore but it won’t be yours because you’ll announce we’ve won, you tell Netanyahu to shove it – I wish the fuck I’d done that to begin with – you let Israel and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the rest of those fucking sand dune countries fight Iran among themselves, you bring all our ships and troops home and and you’re a fucking hero.”
Vance: “But what about stopping Iran from being able to nuke us?”
Trump: “You bought that line? C’mon, JD.”
Vance: “But …”
Trump: “And even if someday, like forever from now, if they get their nukes up and running we’ll be long gone. It’ll be someone else’s problem.”
Vance: “Jesus Christ! I was right back in twenty-eighteen when I said you were unfit for the presidency. You don’t give a fuck about America, do you?”
Trump: “Oh, and one more thing. As soon as the Army, the Marines, and the rest of the troops begin arriving home, which is like in a week or three, you announce you’re running for president. Like I said, a fucking hero. Let’s see Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the rest of the Dems beat that.”
Vance: “Well, I don’t know …”
Trump: “And you’ll need a vice president …”
Vance: “Like I said before, fuck you.”
(Recording ends)
