November 25, 2024: Trump Nominates Pam Bondi for AG, Scott Bessent for Treasury, and Russell Vought. Here's What to Know About Them. PLUS Trump's Election Interference Case To Be Dropped, and More.
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Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Monday, November 25th. It is a short week and this is your daily news rundown. As always, if you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides, you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen, share the show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, please go ahead and hit that thumbs up button. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories.

Since Friday, Donald Trump has nominated and selected many individuals to fill both his cabinet and his executive office, and his cabinet is officially full. Now, we won't be able to cover all of the recent picks, but let's go over a few of them, and then at the

And we'll do a quick recap of everyone that he has nominated for his cabinet specifically and their positions. On Friday, just one day after Gates withdrew from the attorney general nomination, Trump nominated Pam Bondi for the position.

As with any cabinet position, this is a position that requires Senate confirmation. It's ultimately the reason that Gates withdrew. He didn't have enough support in the Senate. And if confirmed, Bondi will head the DOJ. A little bit about Bondi. She started her work as a prosecutor in Florida. She worked as a prosecutor for 18 years before becoming Florida's

first female attorney general in 2010. She is known for leading famous cases out of Florida, like the case challenging Obama's Affordable Care Act and a Florida case where she fought to protect the state's ban on same-sex marriages. That was pre-Obertrell, which of course is the case that legalized the right to same-sex marriage. She also strongly fought to combat the

pill mills, which are facilities that prescribe pain medication without an actual diagnosis or proper documentation. She worked on fighting the state's opioid crisis. She was a prominent animal rights activist supporting a state ballot measure to ban dog racing in 2018. And she also focused on various human trafficking issues.

In 2013, Trump's foundation gave a $25,000 contribution to Bondi's political action committee during her reelection bid for Florida Attorney General. And this led Democrats to allege that that donation influenced Bondi to drop a pending fraud investigation into Trump University. However, it's worth noting that a Florida ethics panel cleared Bondi of any wrongdoing in the matter.

Bondi has also been a lobbyist lobbying for some large corporations like Amazon, General Motors and Uber, and currently works as a partner at Ballard Partners, which is a Florida based lobbying firm where Trump's pick for chief of staff, Susie Wiles, also works as a partner. Bondi was on the defense team in Trump's

impeachment trial and is now listed as the chair for the Center for Litigation at the America First Policy Institute, where she helped lead the Institute's work against the quote unquote weaponization of the Justice Department. And more recently, during Trump's first administration, Bondi worked on Trump's Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission.

Now, obviously, that is not everything that you could possibly know about Bondi. So if you are interested in learning more, I, of course, have many sources linked for you in the sources section of this episode. Moving on to Scott Besant, Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary. Besant is a 62-year-old hedge fund manager and founder of Key Square Capital Management.

If confirmed, Besant will be the first openly gay Treasury Secretary. As far as the Treasury Secretary's role, it is one of the most crucial hires in any administration because of the ties to the economy, and also because the Treasury Secretary is essentially the President's quarterback when it comes to executing the President's economic plays.

The Treasury Secretary is also responsible for formulating and recommending both domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policy and managing the public debt. And then, of course, as we've discussed, the Treasury Secretary also oversees all of the agencies and offices within the Treasury Department. But

Besant has been critical of the Biden administration's quote-unquote reckless spending and donated roughly $3 million to Trump and other Republicans this election cycle, calling Trump, quote, very sophisticated on economic policy.

Before founding Key Square, he served as the chief investment officer at the Soros Fund, analyzing macroeconomic and geopolitical risks, and he is known for his role in the fund's bet against the yen, which garnered more than a billion dollars in profits for the Soros Fund in just three months.

Now, perhaps the biggest talking point when it comes to the economy is tariffs. We all know there has been some controversy surrounding Trump's tariff plans. Some are in favor, some are against, but Besant is of the belief that tariffs are not inflationary. He has pushed back on the criticisms of tariffs, which he calls, quote unquote, absurd, and instead describes tariffs as a, quote, negotiating tool with our trading partners.

End quote. In an opinion piece for Fox News, Besant wrote, quote, Critics of tariffs argue that they will increase the prices Americans pay for imported goods. But the facts argue against this. President Trump's first term tariffs did not raise the prices of the affected goods, despite predictions back then that the tariffs would prove inflationary.

He also believes that tariffs can, quote, increase revenue to the treasury, encourage businesses to restore production, and reduce our reliance on industrial production from strategic rivals, end quote. And while he believes in the power of tariffs, CNBC has reported that strategists expect Besant to push Trump to consider a softer approach and take some of the sting out of Trump's more extreme economic views.

According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, Besant has advised Trump to create a 3-3-3 policy, which involves cutting the budget deficit to 3% of GDP by 2028, pushing GDP growth to 3% via deregulation, and pumping out an additional 3 million barrels of oil each day, which would result in the U.S. producing around 16 million barrels of oil per day.

Besant offered a roadmap of his vision for the economy during Trump's second term, saying, quote, "...restarting the American growth engine, reducing inflationary pressures, and addressing the debt burden from four years of reckless spending." End quote. He also called for an overhaul of bank regulations, preserving the American dollar, reforming Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, and a renaissance in American energy investment and free and fair trade.

In his first interview following his nomination, Besant said his policy priority would be to deliver on Trump's various tax cut pledges, which include making the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 permanent and eliminating taxes on tips, Social Security benefits, and overtime pay.

Now let's go over one more pick, Russell Vought, who Trump chose to head the Office of Management and Budget, a position that Vought previously held in Trump's first administration. I'm covering this one not because it's in Trump's cabinet, but because a lot of you had questions about

about him and his ties to Project 2025. Now, despite this position being part of the president's executive office and not in his cabinet, this position is still subject to Senate confirmation. So let's talk a little bit about the role and then Vaught himself and his role in 2025. The OMB oversees the implementation of the president's vision across the executive branch, i.e. oversees the performance of federal agencies and administers the federal budget.

Vaught has worked for more than 24 years in D.C. He worked on Capitol Hill at one time, serving as the policy director for the House Republican Conference, the executive director of the Republican Study Committee, and as a legislative assistant in the Senate.

He also spent seven years working as the VP for the Heritage Action for America, which is a sister organization to the Heritage Foundation, and he joined Trump's administration in 2020 as the director of OMB. Vaught describes the OMB as the president's, quote,

ground planes that are flying off course, end quote. As mentioned, Vought is a co-author of Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. He specifically wrote chapter two, which is titled, quote, Executive Office of the President of the United States, end quote. Remember that the president has an executive office and a cabinet, two different things. Vought's chapter discusses his vision for the president's executive office, which includes notes for many of the components with

in the president's executive office. So the Office of Management and Budget, which is what he has been nominated to run, the National Security Council, the National Economic Council, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Council of Economic Advisors, the National Space Council, the Office of Science and Tech Policy, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Gender Policy Council, and the Office of the Vice President.

president.

Most of those offices that I just mentioned are older offices, having been created between 1939 and 1976. The newest of the offices are the Office of National Drug Control Policy, created in 1989. The National Space Council, also created in 1989, but was non-operational from 1993 to 2017 when Trump revived it. The National Economic Council, created in 1993. And the most recent is the Gender Policy Council, which was created in 2021.

Of these 11 offices and councils that Vaught wrote about in his chapter, he lays out his vision for 10 of them. The exception is the Gender Policy Council, which he recommends eliminating completely. He wrote, quote, the president should immediately revoke Executive Order 14020 and every policy produced on its behalf.

Abolishing the Gender Policy Council would eliminate central promotion of abortion, comprehensive sexuality education, and the new woke gender ideology, which has as a principal tenant, gender-affirming care and sex change surgeries on minors.

End quote. Vaught further recommends, in addition to doing away with the Gender Policy Council, adding an appointed position, which would help facilitate the, quote, implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family in the United States.

And of course, if you want to read more about Vought or his views on the executive office of the president specifically, I do have many sources linked for you in the sources section of this episode, including chapter two of Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. Let's take a quick break here. When we come back, we will do a quick recap of all of Trump's cabinet picks, plus quick hitters and critical thinking.

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Welcome back. Okay, so I think we've covered in total over the last couple of weeks 15 or so of Trump's picks for both his cabinet and executive office. We obviously didn't get to everyone, but let's do a quick recap of just those in his cabinet. Remember, the cabinet consists of 15 seats, one for each head of department, and each of these roles is subject to Senate confirmation. Right?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Lori Chavez de Reimer as Labor Secretary, Scott Besant as Treasury Secretary, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, Pam Bondi as Attorney General, Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior,

Brooke Rawlins as Agriculture Secretary, Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary, Scott Turner as Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Sean Duffy as Transportation Secretary, Chris Wright as Energy Secretary, Linda McMahon as Education Secretary, Douglas Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and Kristi Noem as Homeland Secretary.

Of those 15 nominations, we have covered RFK Jr., Scott Besant, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi, Chris Wright, Linda McMahon, and Kristi Noem, and that does not include all of the executive office picks we have talked about as well. So if you do want to learn more about any of those individuals, just go look through the episodes over the last couple of weeks.

And now we can get into some quick hitters. Special counsel Jack Smith said he will be dropping the federal election interference case against Trump. In his request for dismissal, Smith wrote, "...the Justice Department's position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated. This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant."

Up until now, what's been going on is the judge has been in the process of considering which of Trump's alleged actions were covered by immunity as per the Supreme Court's recent decision. However, once these charges are dropped, the judge will no longer have to make that determination because the case will be done.

The social media network Blue Sky has added 7 million users since election day, and the COO is saying that the 20-person team is in, quote, firefighting mode, end quote. Many users post-election left X for Blue Sky, saying that Blue Sky is like the, quote, unquote, old Twitter, and that Elon Musk has used X as a political megaphone in his support for Trump.

Blue Sky is an app which was created in 2019 as this internal project at Twitter. It launched as a separate company in 2021, and it launched a beta version of the app just last year where users could join, but only if they got an invite. Blue Sky is competing with both X and Meta's Threads app, so it'll be interesting to see how the app performs compared to those two.

Macy's is delaying the release of its quarterly earnings result after it found a possible $154 million accounting-related issue that goes back years. So an independent investigation and forensic analysis found that a single employee with responsibility for small package delivery expense accountants

accounting, intentionally made erroneous accounting accrual entries to hide roughly $132 million to $154 million of expenses from the fourth quarter of 2021 through the fiscal quarter ended November 2nd. Macy said the person behind the conduct is no longer an employee and that they hope to have the internal investigation completed by December 11th, at which point the quarterly earnings result will be released.

On Friday, Judge Mershon indefinitely postponed Trump's sentencing in his falsifying business records case. So this is the case where Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree after he wrote checks to reimburse his former attorney, Michael Cohen, for payments made to Stormy Daniels.

After the Supreme Court issued its recent presidential immunity ruling, Trump sought to have that conviction overturned. And since being elected, things have been further complicated. So to clarify what the judge's Friday ruling means is that Trump's sentencing date of November 26th will not go forward. And there has been no new sentencing date scheduled.

The judge will now have to decide whether to dismiss the case entirely based upon the Supreme Court's recent ruling and Trump being elected as president. The Texas Education Board voted on Friday to approve the inclusion of Bible-based lessons in public elementary schools. The curriculum is optional for schools to adopt, but includes a financial incentive for schools to do so, which is $60 per

student. The new classroom materials would feature lessons on Christian teachings, like stories from the book of Genesis, and moral principles like the golden rule. At the board meeting earlier this week, more than 100 people did express both support and opposition to the lessons, which signals that we may likely see this new board of education rule challenged in court.

And finally, Caitlyn Jenner has declared her intention to run for governor of California as a Republican. Her announcement comes after her previous attempt in a recall election in 2021, where she only garnered about 1% of the votes.

And now it's time for critical thinking. It's been a minute since our last critical thinking exercise, but I figured we could bring it back today since we're almost back to normal post-election. For those that may be new to the podcast, this is a segment where I just pose some questions to get you thinking deeper about any given issue. It's nothing crazy. The questions aren't too complex. It's quite literally just to open the door to thought.

because nowadays we tend to be really set in our ways when it comes to our beliefs, and sometimes we just need to challenge those beliefs a little bit, take a look at the other side, and just kind of like think, right? So my goal with this exercise is always to get you to be able to argue for the other side, regardless of what your stance is. More often than not, the critical thinking exercise will tie back to a story that we've covered in the episode, but not always. Today, it does not.

So last week, Jose Ibarra, he is an illegal Venezuelan immigrant. He was found guilty of murdering 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. The case was pretty straightforward. The evidence against Ibarra was overwhelming. And the case was a pretty big talking point this election season. If you want a little recap of the case and the conviction, go check out Wednesday's episode from last week.

But following Ibarra's conviction, obviously every news outlet did a little write-up on the story, right? But it was MSNBC's coverage that got a lot of attention, specifically the headline that MSNBC chose for this article. The article was originally written on November 21st at 7.07 p.m. Eastern Time, the night of the conviction, and the headline read, quote, Lake and Riley's killer never stood a chance.

End quote. And a lot of people took issue with the way it was worded, so about 14 hours later, the headline was updated to instead read, quote, the guilt of Lake and Riley's killer was never in doubt. End quote. Now, the subtext underneath the headline, that remained unchanged, and it says, quote, for all the political controversy surrounding Jose Ibarra, the case against him was always a simple one. End quote. Now, here are the questions I have for you. When you hear that original headline, Lake and Riley's killer never stood a chance,

How do you interpret that? What message do you feel that MSNBC is trying to convey? And I want you to actually pause the episode and think about not only your initial interpretation, but also a second interpretation. Because there are really two interpretations here that make sense, and they each fall on opposite sides of the spectrum. So take a minute here and come back.

Okay, now that you're back, I will tell you the two most popular interpretations. You could interpret that headline to mean that Ibarra never stood a chance because the evidence against him was so overwhelming. Or you could interpret the headline to mean that Ibarra never stood a chance because he was an illegal immigrant in the United States justice system that would have never been given a fair shot.

Now, that's obviously not, you know, that's not the only, those aren't the only two ways you can interpret this. But the interpretation that came to you initially will more than likely correlate to how you feel about MSNBC and its reporting.

So like I said, my goal in this is to always, you know, get you challenging the way that you think. And even if it's just for a second, thinking about the opposite argument, the opposite side. But there's also a second takeaway here, and it's something that I've been preaching for two years. Always read past the headline. Always, always, always. The headlines never tell the full story. And in fact, the headlines often twist the story in ways you didn't even know were possible because the headlines are meant to be clickbait.

bait, right? So always read past the headline. And I do want to give those of you praise that thought to yourself in the midst of this exercise, well, what does the article say? Because the article will always add color to a headline. So I want you to get used to thinking that way, like seeing a headline and then thinking, well, let me read and see what this says.

So that's that. The media will continue to do what the media does and twist narratives and spark controversy, but that is why I am here. So that's what I have for you today. I hope you have a great night and I will talk to you tomorrow for the second and final episode of the week.