11/12/24: Trump Goes Full Neocon Cabinet, Kamala Begs For Money, Top Dems Face Zero Consequences
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Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? That's right. A lot of big developments, especially on the Trump staffing front. Neocons quite happy with some of the recent picks. We'll break all of those down for you. We're also going to take a look at the spending of the Kamala Harris campaign, which was wild. We will show you some of the craziest things and what they paid for them.

Libs are also cooking over on TikTok with some major election conspiracies that we wanted to share with you as well. So, yeah, that's a good one. We've got a look at the media. Liberal media really suffering in the wake of Kamala's loss. But actually some surprising outlets, including ones that are allied with us, are gaining quite a bit of strength. So interesting to look at that media rebalancing. Also, Chris Wallace making the choice to leave CNN and become a streamer. Pretty funny. Okay.

Pretty interesting. We'll discuss. Yes, indeed. Jim Zogby is going to join us both to talk about the DNC and the massive overhaul that he thinks needs to happen there. And also to take a look at AOC actually went on Instagram and was like, listen, if you are an AOC Trump voter, I want to hear from you. I want to know why you picked me and Donald Trump. And the responses are quite interesting. A lot of them have to do, frankly, with Gaza. So we're going to talk to Jim about that as well.

And one of the things that we haven't spent a lot of time discussing, which is how much Harris's support of the Gaza genocide really impacted her electoral outcomes. I'm also taking a look at the failed ideology that doomed the Dems. It was not wokeism. Jon Stewart had a good bit on that. I'll share some of that with you as well. And we're going to talk today to Andrew Yang, get his post-election analysis. You'll recall Yang was really on board with Dean Phillips. Mm-hmm.

He was one of the people really early saying, listen, Biden is too old. Like, come on, guys, you got to do something different. So he deserves a lot of a lot of credit for having that level of prescience. We're going to have that for premium subscribers today for everybody else. The free version will be out later this week. I think this weekend. Yeah, that out for everybody. Yeah. So sign up breaking points dot com and get early access to our Andrew Yang interview. Oh, gee, for many people who are fans of the show for the 2019 Yang Gang. Big.

First major interview. We did it at Rising. Actually, the first clip to ever cross over 2,000 views. So I will always be very special to you. Over 2,000. That was the, yeah. That was a task for us. That was a big deal for us at the point. It was a big day. It was a big day. Indeed. I'll never forget it. So Andrew Yang, you'll always have a place in my heart as long as the original Andrew Yang gang. So like Crystal said, we're getting a lot of stuff that started to break late last night. The single most important appointment now so far, let's go and put this up there,

on the screen. This is from the New York Times. Everybody keep in mind, this is not yet 100% official, but Donald Trump is expected to name Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his Secretary of State. Now, as the Times cautions, Mr. Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, the people said, but he appears to have settled on Rubio, who he also considered choosing as his running mate earlier this year.

I mean, this is arguably the most important pick so far. Secretary of State, of course, is such an important part of the US government. You're gonna be in the Situation Room. You will be America's diplomatic ambassador to the world. And I mean, there's no really sugarcoating this. Marco Rubio is definitely more of a neocon persuasion than anybody else who was in the running. It really was between him and Rick Grinnell.

I mean, cards on the table, I would have far preferred Rick Grinnell. Grinnell was Trump's ambassador to Germany. Probably most importantly, though, Grinnell wrote op-eds while he was the ambassador to Germany, kind of justifying a lot of realism and of anti-NATO skepticism, where the truth is, is that Rubio has really been on the other side of a lot of these issues all the way going back to 2016. Look, it's complicated because

the supporters of this who are like, oh, this is not a betrayal or whatever. It's like, oh, well, Rubio voted against Ukraine. And it's like, yeah, in 2023. It's like, but what about in 2022? And then who are the people about? That's actually such a great point. And this is very important for me is it's not about Ukraine today because we're about to talk about Mike Waltz, who was the new National Security Advisor.

fine. He's like, hey, what did he say? He's like, oh, well, now there's no path to victory. It's like, what were you actually saying at the time? Because the reason why it matters is what was your mindset going into 2022? Did you want war with Russia? And I think with Rubio and with Mike Waltz, who I'm about to get to, he also basically supported a full-on war. Not basically. His

criticism was that the Biden administration was holding Ukraine back, that they needed to immediately authorize long-range missile strikes and ship more weapons to Ukraine. So his criticism was from the hawkish direction vis-a-vis Biden. And I think your analysis is important because it's not just, okay, now that the party has moved and it's clear what's going on, and even some of the liberals are like, oh,

I don't know if this Ukraine thing is really working out the way we wanted it to. It's another thing to have seen where this was going and been a critic when it was more difficult and when it took more courage. I want to stick with this for two issues, Afghanistan and Ukraine, because here's the thing. It's fine to be dragged, kicking and screaming to the correct position on Ukraine, which is okay, we got to wrap this stuff up. But

I went back and I looked. Let's put the next one, please, up there on the screen. This is Mike Waltz. He will be the next national security advisor. Is, again, very confounding for a variety of reasons. The main one is I went and looked at all of the track record. Mike Waltz was advocating for the, quote unquote, arsenal of democracy to be thrown at Putin in Ukraine. He also specifically basically implied we should go to war with Russia and unleash the Ukrainian arsenal.

army to defend Eastern Ukraine, is a NATO expansionist of Sweden and Finland. Now he's like, okay, we don't need to increase it anymore. And now he says, okay, Ukraine should not be in NATO. But I also went back and I read his press release from February of 2020, and he basically criticized the Trump peace deal with Afghanistan. So those are very important test cases for me because, guys, this is not about the issues at hand right now that are already on the downswing.

right? Nobody at this point, uh, even Biden was advocating for like full on war in Ukraine. The point is, is what were you going to do in office? What were you going to do in the situation room? What judgment are you going to have when these situations arise? So for example, when Donald Trump is trying to sign a peace deal with, uh, with the Taliban, Mike Walsh spoke against it. Mike Walsh actually was booed at CPAC back at, I think it was several years ago where he said that we should stay in Afghanistan forever and it should be a multi-generational war. Uh,

Marco Rubio as well. I've covered him for a long time. And I don't want to misconstrue. He is not a Tom Cotton figure. He is not a full-on, hardcore neocon as ideologically as others. But his persuasion and his intellectual kind of framework around the issue, especially Latin America, oh my god.

But Latin America, Cuba, Venezuela, all this stuff. But especially on Russia, on Iran, these are... I mean, there's no getting away from it. He's a major hawk. And he definitely comes...

2015-2016 campaign, I covered him extensively. He was probably the most hawkish candidate in the 2016 race, did not support the peace deal with Afghanistan. And so far, there is only one voice in the room that passes those two tests for me, at least.

And that's J.D. Vance is the vice president, and that's great. But the truth is the vice president only has as much power as the president gives him. The secretary of state is going to run the Department of State. You know, the national security advisor, this is another thing people really need to understand. It's not just about the advice in the room.

A national security advisor's job is something called interagency cooperation. And I'm going to get deep, so everybody stick with me. But there's a great book called The Essence of Decisions, one of the foundations of political science. And it looks at the Cuban Missile Crisis through various different lenses.

of how John F. Kennedy arrived at the correct decision in the Cuban Missile Crisis. And they're one of those that I think is so important, it's called the organizational theory. And really what it means is that it really wasn't up to Kennedy, it was about the options that were presented to Kennedy. For a guy like Trump, who, let's be honest, is old and also never took great interest in the issues,

the people who are his advisors, who are presenting him the options to choose from, they have a lot of power. So let's say it is February 2022 and Russia does invade Ukraine and Trump is presented with three options. And the least hawkish option is the insane sanctions regime that we have pursued on Russia. Well, that's still a really bad option. That's actually a really dumb option. Now the president can override that, but

In the moment, you've got everybody in the Situation Room and the National Security Advisor's job is running the meeting. And he says, "All right, Mr. President Rubio, you're up first. Here are the three different things, the packages that we presented to you." And Trump, even beknownst to him, honestly,

and unbeknownst to most presidents, picks what is already a hawkish option. Unless he has really rock solid intuitions and says, no, we're going to do totally something different, well, we're in for a bad way. So in both of these cases, like I said about yesterday, Elise Stefanik, I think honestly that's a lot of bullshit. That's just some Israel whatever. The Israelis are obsessed with UN, fine, whatever. She lives in New York. She's not particularly in part of the apparatus. But here we're talking about

I mean, Secretary of State is arguably the most important part of the entire, the entire, the cabinet traditionally looked upon by the founders. Thomas Jefferson was our Secretary of State. He was looked at as a path of, to the presidency. National Security Advisor is hands down one of the most important national security positions. And, um,

He's decided to go in this direction. So look, for a lot of people out there, it's funny. There are a lot of people who got into politics over the last four years, especially who got into Trump over the last four years. And they always got mad because I was like, look, I was there. I remember when he was actually president and I saw a lot of this happening behind the scenes. And I've always warned you should have no illusions.

You know, what is it? RFK Jr. allegedly didn't want Marco Rubio to be secretary of state. I tried to tell you, you know, in terms of the power that these people have. And Trump, I mean, if we're really being honest, did ideology even play a role in this? Or was it Mike Walsh is a former Green Beret? I like the way he looks. And he's buff in a suit. And it goes on Fox News. And look, he's not stupid. He's a smart guy.

I listened to several interviews with him last night. He's smart. He's got an ideology. He worked for Dick Cheney. He was his counterterrorism advisor. He worked for Donald Rumsfeld. He was in the White House. He knows what he's doing. And in fact, you know, you should probably fear competence in a situation like that. I think you would actually prefer that he be dumb because then he would be less effective in pushing what has been. I mean, like you said, he worked for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Like, that's who we're talking about. So, yeah, you know, Michael Tracy pointing out five seconds.

seconds ago, everyone pretending like there was some giant gulf ideologically between the Chinese and Trump. Like, you were tricked. You were fooled. That was always...

Based on his track record in the first administration that that was preposterous. He liked using the anti-war label and having people like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, who were willing to abandon all the previous criticism they had of him to get closer to power and will have nothing to say, by the way, about any of these clear neocon warmongering picks.

He liked having the anti-war mantle placed upon him because he thought it was politically useful. Did he ever ideologically buy into that? No, there's never. He had John Bolton in the last administration and Mike Pompeo in the last administration. Like actually, and again, follow Michael Tracy because he digs into the details on all this stuff and is very consistent calling out Republicans, Democrats alike on this issue in particular. But actually, as Tracy points out, this is a more interventionist administration that Trump is starting with.

than he did last time around because you've got Marco Rubio, who is an ideological hawk, like you said, especially when it comes to Iran or any sort of Latin American country, much more interventionist and much more ideological than last time you had Rex Tillerson, who was just some business guy who didn't really have an ideology whatsoever. So when you put together

Elise Stefanik, who I think it was Tracy called basically like Nikki Haley 2.0. They effectively have like the same ideology. So Trump makes a big show of saying no Mike Pompeo, no Nikki Haley, and then swaps in people who have basically the identical ideology. You know, between Stefanik, Rubio and Mike Waltz, you've got people who have been actively itching for war with Russia.

China Iran and Mexico so you know, that's where we are everybody who Deluded themselves. I'm talking about regular people I'm talking about the influencers out there like deluded themselves or deluded their followers into thinking that this was gonna be an anti-war Administration like sorry you got played well that played and you've been warning people. Yes, you've been warning people Yeah, but I also like yeah, you know, what does this say about who?

Who has Trump's ear? Who's actually influential? Because supposedly Don Jr. was pushing against these sort of picks. J.D. Vance would theoretically be pushing against these sort of picks. Tucker Carlson would theoretically be pushing against these sort of picks. And yet we've got, you know, an administration that is now stocked with unreconstructed neocons.

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It's always been this way. And this is why, if anything, it's just exactly like it was last time around. So for everybody who will remember, Trump would, what was it? He strikes Syria, Assad, right? Tucker would go on TV and be like, this is terrible and it's a bad idea. Tucker would be in, he would put up lists of Republicans who were neocons, who were betraying the MAGA base. Did Trump ever make them pay a price? No. Tucker has been consistent on this, always has been. Has who else? J.D., for example. But

But at the end of the day, he's the vice president. What can he do? I mean, Trump is the man in the office. This is also, I would be remiss if I didn't say, it's a coalition party. And the truth is, is pro-Israel came in big for Trump. And I actually think this is where they are cashing in their chips more than anywhere else. I mean, Rubio has been a darling of the Paul Singer network for 10 years now at this point. You know, all those free trips to Israel, like there ain't free. They come at a cost.

Miriam Adelson, they don't give you $100 million for free, okay? You get what you pay for. And what you pay for really is this. Both Wall Street and Wall Street in particular on Iran is unhinged. I went and I was looking at some of this. And frankly, that's kind of scary for what that looks like for in the future. I mean-

Tucker tried to elevate, you know, my friend Bridge Colby. I thought he made he had a shot just because I didn't think he had a shot until he went on Tucker's show. And then I was like, oh shit, you know, maybe this is real. And the truth, the

The problem too is on the campaign trail. Trump actually did present himself as anti-war and he did run with Tulsi and with RFK Jr. and all these other people. I warned people because of how he presented himself in office last time. But in terms of the people on his campaign, I think it's fair to say Rick Grenell and all these other people, Rick led the outreach to the Muslim community, which worked obviously against Les Cheney. He won the vote in Dearborn, Michigan and seems to, yeah, he literally won the vote in Dearborn and many of the other places. But

But this is the issue, is that Trump also is a creature of the Republican coalition of the donor class and also of television. And Marco, one of the things, he's a deeply narcissistic individual. Like Mike Wallace has been on TV- Trump or Marco or both. Oh, actually not Marco. Marco's a pretty humble guy.

I like Marco Rubio on a personal level. I've talked to him before. He's, again, he's a smart guy. Um, he's somebody who, he thinks about the world and he's not, you know, he's not like a total establishment hack in the way that a lot of people might think. He's, you know, he's good on the child tax credit and stuff like that. So he's not a bad figure. To mention that, obviously I'm not a big Marco Rubio fan, but, um,

he is one of the Republicans who can be a little bit unorthodox in terms of economics. Yes. And so it's also a loss to lose him from the Senate in terms of like, you know, any sort of new right populist direction in the Senate. Instead, you've elevated him on the issues where he's the worst and

and take an amount of play on, you know, places like the child tax credit where he might be more interesting and more transformational. Well, yeah, it's good. It's actually, you know, we will get to this. But unfortunately, because DeSantis now gets to appoint, you know, whoever he wants for the Florida senator, there's almost no chance that Marco Rubio would be a voice for any of this next time on the child tax credit in the TC. Rubio actually held up the entire TCJA bill last time around.

That's a big tax cut. The Tax Cuts Act specifically to try and get some earned income tax credit and other CTC stuff. He actually increased the corporate tax rate, which they were furious at him for in order to try and get more family stuff. So that's sad. Also, J.D. was one of the only other people who probably would have pushed for that in the Senate, and now he's the vice president. So that's the secondary thing. But look-

At this point, really what you should be betting on, personnel is policy, and I'm not going to erase that. Really what you should be hoping if you're really anti-war is that when Trump is in the room and he gets presented with a lot of this nonsense, that he says no. But, you know, that's a lot of faith to put in a person. How's that track record? That's a lot of faith to put into a person. And, you know, even all of this stuff about a

Again, like Iran, Ukraine, and all this, these are entrenched conflicts. I'm not that worried about full-blown there. But the thing is, is that when you're in the office, shit happens. October 7th happens. 9-11 happens. Nobody voted for George W. Bush, who, by the way, ran on a restraintist foreign policy in 2000, and had any interest

idea that the people who would be in office like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney would be responsible for overseeing the mass transformation and invitation of the United States into the global war on terror and the disastrous prosecution of that. That's why you always should have to think really hard about the people you put in because you never know what could happen. Trump likes to say Ukraine, Russia never would have happened on his watch. Maybe, but you know, it could. Another one could. October 7th never would happen. Maybe.

Maybe, you know, but it could. That one is the least credible. I can understand the case more on Russia. Right, because he had better relations with Putin. Maybe, maybe. We don't know, but maybe. On October 7th, like a big part of the reason why Hamas, you know,

organized and perpetrated October 7th, had to do with the Abraham Accords that were of course, you know, started and signed under Trump. Because they felt like that was just completely taking the Palestinian issue off the table and creating this normalization that just ignored them and, you know, invisibilized them completely.

I mean, they're right in that assessment. Obviously wrong in the execution with regard to killing innocent civilians. But, you know, so I don't even see the case how why Hamas would be deterred from October 7th if Donald Trump was there. That doesn't make any sense to me. But, you know, a few things like you're absolutely right. Every one of these picks, not that this is a surprise because AIPAC always wins, whether it's a Democratic or Republican administration. But I mean, these are some hardcore options.

ideological Zionist believers. There's a clip going around of Marco Rubio engaging with Code Pink and Medea Benjamin of Code Pink. And he's quite aggressive. He's like, I want you to play this video. I want people to see me saying that, not that I don't care that the civilians are being killed, but it's 100% Hamas's fault. And I want people to know that and they should go in and they should keep doing what they're doing until every vestige of Hamas is destroyed. Like,

He's committed. He's ideological. Obviously, Stefanik made her name by inciting this fake anti-Semitism panic across college campuses and becoming an absolute darling of the donor class that was very interested in that whole conflict, many of whom became huge Trump supporters and sort of like, in a sense, laundered their support of Trump, which is also in their own class interests.

through this like virtuous lens of, oh, we're standing up against anti-Semitism. So, you know, she gets her slot. Waltz is obviously very ideological. You should see that clip of him at CPAC talking about Afghanistan, where he's like, he's like,

He got booed. He got booed. That's exactly right. He was like, we've been there 15 years, and you know what? This is going to be a multi-generational conflict, and basically we should be there forever. It's like, okay. So yeah, now that things seem very different on Ukraine, and you recognize you've got to sound a little bit of a different note if you're going to have any chance at power within a Trump administration, you've changed your tune. But the ideology is in there deep. Again, this is an aid-

Former aide to Cheney and Rumsfeld. That's who we're talking about. And there is no shift in terms of his ideological views. The other thing that just a quick note is the House has been called officially for Republicans now. Do you know what the final margin was? 220, 215? Two seats. It's very narrow. OK, it's a very narrow margin that they have.

And with Waltz and Stefanik, you're taking two House members out and making that an even more narrow margin for Republicans. And while Democrats, yes, just got shellacked in a big national general election, they do really well in special elections because now they are the party of high information, high turnout. I show up at every election, every primary, whatever, voters. And

Plus the Democratic base is going to be super pissed and ready to like show up and try to resist this Trump administration. So, you know, I'm not sure the makeup exactly of either one of these districts, but you have to think at least there's some chance in New York and Florida, um, that, and it's not like, you know, super rural Florida either, that there could be a shot. There could be a risk for one or both of these seats. Yeah, that's a good point. Uh, I will say I was told by a source that the defense secretary pick will come sometime today. Uh,

I don't know what it will be. They said I would be surprised, so I don't know what that means. Oh, surprise. I don't know what that is. Yeah. You know, I mean, at this point, I can hope. These were surprises. I wasn't that surprised, actually, by Rubio. Well, he was named as being in the running. Right. I was way more surprised by Walt. He was in the running, but I was like,

oh, man, he's really going for it. In terms of the White House, those two back-to-back, it was a little bit of a gut punch. I actually think there is a, I'll give it like a 10% chance that Tulsi Gabbard gets Secretary of Defense. I'm serious. That's what was, that's basically the way that I was looking. I don't, in terms of who- I would be surprised. I would be shocked. That would surprise me. I said 10%, okay, 10%. But, you know, 90% it'll be somebody like Bill Hagerty or somebody like that. Hagerty actually would be pretty good.

He's pretty consistent on Ukraine. There are a few others where, again, there's a lot of names out there. I'm not going to be sure, but yeah. The fact that they told me I would be very surprised, I was like, huh, okay. I was like, who would I actually be surprised by? I mean, really, Tulsi's the only one I would be. I would be like, I'd be like, wow, if that were the case. I would take her in a heartbeat over any of these other people. So we'll see.

As a kid, I really do remember having these dreams and visions, but you just don't know what is going to come for you. Alicia Keys opens up about conquering doubt, learning to trust herself and leaning into her dreams. I think a lot of times we are built to doubt.

the possibilities for ourselves, for self-preservation and protection. It was literally that step by step. And so I discovered that that is how we get where we're going. This increment of small steps

determined moments. Alicia shares her wisdom on growth, gratitude, and the power of love. I forgive myself. It's okay. Like grace. Have grace with yourself. You're trying your best and you're going to figure out the rhythm of this thing. Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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with your child? These are just a few of the powerful and profound questions we'll be asking on our 11th season of Family Secrets. Some of you have been with us since season one, and others are just tuning in. Whatever the case, and wherever you are, thank you for being part of our Family Secrets family, where every week we explore the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves.

Listen to season 11 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Layton, and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8, 1992, apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose Place was introduced to the world. It took drama and mayhem to an entirely new level. We are going to be reliving every hook

up every scandal, every backstab, blackmail and explosion, and every single wig removal together. Secrets are revealed as we rewatch every moment with you. Special guests from back in the day will be dropping by. You know who they are. Sydney, Allison, and Joe are back together on Still the Place with a trip down memory lane and back.

to Melrose Place. So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I just do think it's really, I don't know, darkly funny the way that Trump made this big show of like, oh, I'm not going to have Nikki Haley and I'm not going to have Mike Pompeo so that people who are on the new right who share your ideology be like, okay, this looks like this

Like, this is good. This is encouraging. And then hours later, it's like, instead, I'm going to have this group of neocons who have the exact same ideology. Yeah, but Crystal, look, left people are used to getting shit on by their coalition for the right people. You should get used to it as well. All right? Here's the first dose. Yeah, this is the first dose. Get ready. Trump is anti-war dream, officially dead. And it's not even, we're exactly a week from election. He could not do anything while he's in office. It's just that this makes it hard.

harder to not do anything while he's in office. So the results are what's ultimately the results are what speak for themselves. We will see. I think if he did pick Tulsi, honestly, look, within the realm, that would be fantastic, you know, for at least what I believe in. But...

From what I'm seeing right now, I think it is relatively unlikely. Let's get to the next most confounding pick. Let's put this up there on the screen, guys. The Kirstie Noem element. This is the second element, the one we added. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, so this broke light last night. Trump is picking Kirstie Noem to serve as the Secretary of Homeland Security. Now, here's the thing that people don't understand. Homeland

Homeland Security is one of the largest government agencies. The DHS is actually the largest law enforcement agency in the world. So not only would she be in charge of the Border Patrol and of the mass deportation operation, she would be the face of it the same way that, what was that lady's name?

I'm totally blanking on it right now. From 2018, whatever. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. There was a previous woman who was in the job in 2018 under Donald Trump. I guess he likes women for this job. I guess, yeah. But the thing is, is that you would be the face of it. You would be the one taking the podium. And like, let's be honest, like Kirstie Noem is not an impressive political individual. Like she, this whole thing about murdering her dog, she never came up with a good answer. That's,

child's play compared to the shit the press is going to throw at you. They're going to drag up every sob story of every illegal immigrant that's ever come to the United States and say, how do you justify this? This is not America. This violates the Statue of Liberty. Do you really think that she could stand up to pressure like that? I don't.

And also, I mean, look- By the way, the press 100% should do that. And they should have been doing it under Kamala and Biden and Obama as well. Well, I disagree on that one. But you shouldn't cover what's actually happening in the country. Well, okay.

question. Sure you should. You should also cover a lot of illegal immigrant murders and rapes, right? No, it gets covered on the right way. Sean Hannity with a list. That's right. It's there. But over on MSNBC, it's like these are the greatest angels that ever walked the face of the earth. Anyways, the point is, so that's

That's fine, then they can be law abiding at Crystal in El Salvador, which apparently is such a nice country now and the rest of these places. Regardless, the point is, is that is this a very smart individual? I mean, is this an impressive individual who will be able to make this case? It also is this a competent individual? Here's the gnome as running South Dakota. Okay, that's great. All right, it's a small state. Let's be honest. Let's look at the GDP ranking.

and all this. Is this somebody who is up to the task, not only of one of the most red hot jobs in Washington, is it also going to be like the ability to actually run the agency? I mean, honestly, I don't see it at all. And I have no understanding of why this is picked. Like, I guess the best case for it would be that she's like,

sometimes good on TV and is a surrogate for Donald Trump, right? But even in the past, in terms of her support for Trump and all that, that's been wishy-washy. So this is the most confounding one to me. I have no understanding of this one. You do have an understanding.

We do have an understanding. What, that she's good looking? She slept with his boy, Corey Lewandowski. I bet again, that's as good as it gets. And he thinks she's good looking. And, you know, probably feels like since they have all the dirt on her with regard to that affair, that she'll be unfailingly loyal and sycophantic. And ultimately, that's what he wants. And probably, and I guess, you know, may feel like it's better to have when they're going to be, you know, unmarried.

creating new orphans as they rip parents and children apart as they did in the last administration and sending people who have been here for many years to camps that perhaps it would help to have a woman to be able to sell that deeply cruel and inhumane policy. But it didn't happen last time around, did it? What didn't happen? They completely bucked on child separation, even though they had a woman who was there. Not before they orphaned thousands of children. All right. Again, very in dispute. And then regardless, this is complicated.

But we'll get to that, I guess, when we continue with some of these other people who were appointed. So we also saw the news on the border front that Tom Homan, who was the acting director of ICE, would be appointed as the quote unquote border czar under the president. The reason why that's, again, is a little bit confounding is that czar or...

only has as much power as the president gives you. You don't have statutory power. Kirstie Noem will have statutory power. There was a thought Homan might actually be DHS. That's what I thought. He was going to be the DHS secretary. He's a former border patrol agent. He's rock solid on the issue of immigration, and he was there last time around. Stephen Miller will be, was appointed, I think they announced he will be the deputy chief of staff. Deputy chief of staff is actually a very important position in the White House. They're the real moves and shakers. There's two of them. So the chief of staff gives

policy portfolio. Her job is to run like this stuff in the Oval Office. It's more like an operational role, whereas the deputy chief of staff will get a policy portfolio and their job is to like enforce that throughout the White House. Obviously, Miller, he's been which he served all four years with Donald Trump. He served all four years on the campaign. He was been with him since day one, really. I mean, if you think about it, Miller, it

Miller and Jeff Sessions are two of the original figures to ever back Donald J. Trump back in 2015. Miller was a Sessions aide, correct? Yes, he worked for Jeff Sessions. Sessions is one of the original immigration hawks in Washington. So that's where that comes from. So yeah, on the DHS front, I don't

I don't get it. I truly don't understand. Like Tom Homan, as the borders are, again, borders are is a fine position, but you have no statutory authority. Like your portfolio is to just sit there and like, you know, pressure the DHS secretary to do something, pressure the border patrol, pressure ICE. You can convene meetings in the White House, but you don't have a lot of power. And, you know, in some cases, some of these agencies, they can just say, screw you. I'm not going to listen to you.

You know, Stephen Miller, it's a little bit different. He's the actual deputy chief of staff. He will have a lot more enforceability and presumably he'll have like quote unquote walk-in privileges into the Oval Office. So how that works, you know, we'll see. But yeah, I don't doubt that some mass deportation program of some sort will happen.

But with Kirsten Noem at the helm of it and actually running the police force, I have a lot less, like, frankly, confidence that it will be run competently, you know, in a way that is defensible, you know, to the American people. Because, I mean, like, I mean, look, you know, already the debate we're having that just wait until it's actually real, like real.

It's going to be the most red hot issue in D.C. They're going to throw everything they possibly got. AOC and white on the chain. Immigration has almost never been more popular than at the peak of 2020.

the child separation policy last time around. And, you know, I don't know if that'll be the case this time because at the time, Democrats were, you know, uniformly offering a different vision and were in uniform opposition to the Trump border policies. Now they've basically accepted the, like, Trumpist worldview that immigrants are just bad and the only thing we should do is kick them out. So I don't know if it'll be the same, but I know that there will be a lot of, you know, there will be a lot of people who...

did not really intellectualize what an actual mass deportation policy looks like, feels like, entails, et cetera. And so, yeah, you know, but look, this is what people voted for. Yeah, I mean, he got a popular vote. On the anti-war part, like, I think people were completely sold a bill of goods.

And I think they were just straight up lied to by a bunch of like online influencers and people like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. So I don't think they voted for like war with Iran and Mexico and China and Russia and whatever. But on this, you know, you can't say that he didn't run around talking every day about having an aggressive mass deportation policy. So, you know, Homan and Miller, Haberman, Maggie Haberman at The New York Times is usually correct about, you know, Trump internal dynamics or whatever.

She reports that Miller's portfolio will be quite large and he'll have a lot of power, which wouldn't be surprising because obviously he's been with Trump, you know, he's been with Trump much longer than Susie Wiles, who's the chief of staff. He's the actual OG. He is an OG. He is extremely ideological.

There is nothing Trump could do that would lead Miller to break with him whatsoever. And so, yeah, I think, you know, he is a hardcore anti-immigrant ideologue. I think everybody knows that about him, and he is going to be in a significant position of power. No one should be surprised about that. I, yeah, look, it,

I think you're right. If I had to guess of all the campaign promises that actually gets fulfilled, immigration will probably be it because you have the United Government, right? So H.R. 2, the border bill that most, I think every Republican, almost every Republican has voted for. So that will likely, it won't, maybe it won't become law of the land. Things become squirrely when you actually have to vote for something. But something like that is likely to get in there.

In terms of mass deportation and all of that, it really depends on funding. It also depends on the execution. But, I mean, personally, you know, I have faith in Tom Homan. I have faith in Stephen Miller. But like I said, when you actually have the person there who is going to be running this agency,

who frankly has no previous experience in law enforcement, running the largest law enforcement agency, having, I mean, this is an administrative and bureaucratic nightmare to run this thing. I truly don't understand it. There was one more that I'm not sure if is confirmed yet, but did you see the reporting that it's

Scott Besson will be Treasury Secretary. I saw it reported, but it's not 100, right? Anyway, we'll keep an eye on that one. He's a hedge fund billionaire guy. He's on the short line. Look, it was going to be a hedge fund billionaire guy. It was either him or what was it? Scott Paulson. John Paulson. John Paulson. He's the one, isn't that?

Hank, whatever. Anyway, John Paulson. Not to be confused with Hank Paulson, who was the Secretary of Defense and a billionaire and a former Wall Street. Yeah, get all these rich, rich dudes confused. But in any case, he's the one that they would like dispatched to CNBC to be like, don't worry about the tariffs, guys. It's not going to be bad. He's just using this as a negotiating tool. It'll be fine. You know, he's not really serious about this across, like, across the board thing. So that was his deal. And Trump apparently loved to shout him out at rallies because he's

Scott would tie like the stock market performance to Trump's poll numbers. And Trump, of course, ate that shit up. Yeah, Scott Besson. I mean, look, Trump is a creature of the 1980s. And one of the things in the 1980s was that we almost always had billionaire Wall Streeters as our treasury secretaries. He wants to recreate the Reagan magic. That's what he's looking to do. I'm not justifying it. I'm just telling people how his mind works.

works. And on this one, you were never fooled. He always was honest about this. So let's be very clear about which direction he's looking at. And especially, look, a lot of the Wall Street guys did support his campaign. And Trump owed a lot to them, especially some of these. I mean, obviously, the majority of Wall Street money did go to Kamala in the race. I don't think that's actually not true. I'm thinking of billionaires. The bulk of billionaires went to Trump.

It's actually the biggest billionaire party consolidation was behind Donald Trump this time, which you wouldn't know. Now, Kamala raised vastly more amounts of money. That was predominantly from more like upper middle class resistance liberals who poured in smaller donations. But yeah, the billionaires almost all united behind Trump. And even Kamala's most prominent billionaire, Mark Cuban, actually did not even donate to her campaign.

campaign, which is kind of crazy. No, I have October 3, yeah, from Forbes magazine, Kamala Harris says more billionaires prominently backing her than Trump. So...

I mean, I'm not sure where that's coming from because Bill Gates obviously gave $50 million. So sure, Mark Cuban was a surrogate. I'm not trying to say Trump is better or whatever, but like, I don't think it's accurate to say the majority of billionaires were supporting her. Of the top 10 mega donors, only the bottom two gave to Democrats. Trump's hauled from his own top 10 donors-

amounted to about $945 million. Harris is topped down at $254 million. She ended up raising more money thanks to resistance giving. Trump got to spend much less time raising it with Musk, blah, blah, blah. So anyway.

Yeah, but that's not the same thing. He has a lot of big money behind him. Yeah, he had a lot, but I'm just saying, the majority of billionaires did support Kamala Harris. Now, whether they put their money behind it or not, I don't know, but I'm just saying. I'm not saying Donald Trump is the, what, less billionaire-friendly candidate or whatever. Let's be real. So anyway, that's how the administration is currently shaping up, and I guess it'll be an interesting couple of years. That's the way I'll put it, and that's basically exactly what I expected.

So if you expected something else, I don't really know what to tell you. You were warned, and I did tell you that it was probably going to happen. As a kid, I really do remember having these dreams and visions, but you just don't know what is going to come for you. Alicia Keys opens up about conquering doubt, learning to trust herself, and leaning into her dreams. I think a lot of times we are built to doubt ourselves.

the possibilities for ourselves, for self-preservation and protection. It was literally that step by step. And so I discovered that that is how we get where we're going. This increment of small

Alicia shares her wisdom on growth, gratitude, and the power of love. Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast,

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At the same time, got to pay attention to the campaign that flopped big, and that was Kamala Harris. And it appears the biggest flop not only was just the vote total, but it actually was a lot of the money decisions that were made inside the campaign. So we have curated now a list. It appears that the Kamala Harris campaign, despite raising over $1 billion, uh,

still ended up some $20 million or so in debt and is now currently fundraising, still asking people for money after she lost. Let's put this up there on the screen. So this is an example of one of the emails that she's been sending out now.

She says, first and foremost, we want to acknowledge the fear, the confusion, the sadness many of you are feeling at this moment. For others, you may be looking for something meaningful and important to channel your emotions. If that's you, then we're asking you to make a donation to the Democratic Party today. Here's why this is important. As you read this, there are U.S. Senate and House races that are too close to call or within the margin of recounts. They all need your help to get across the finish line. So can you please rush a contribution to the Harris Foundation?

Fight Fund program today. Does anyone want to name like a high profile race other than Pennsylvania that's not in recount territory? That's right. So this is a grift. Let's all be honest. Let's put this up there on the screen from Newsweek. It appears that there is significant amount of debt within the Harris-Wallace campaign, enough so possibly up to the sum of some $20 million. And people are starting to ask major questions about how some of that got spent.

What we see actually, and very interestingly so far, is not only could she possibly, it appears there are reports out there that she's not able to pay some staff. The staffers came out and said it wasn't true. Okay, so the staffers came out and said it wasn't true. This article actually debunks that thing. But the $20 million does seem to be correct. Yeah, the $20 million does seem to be correct. And that's a lot of money. And so we should start to take a look then.

at where some of that money went. And the craziest is this. This is hands down the craziest. Let's put the next one, please, from the New York Post. The Harris campaign reportedly spent some six figures on the Call Her Daddy podcast set. So as they say, it didn't even crack a million views. But what's fascinating is that, you know, Call Her Daddy,

As I understand it, you know, Alex Cooper, all of this, she has a home. She has a set. Like, she films it, you know, normally. But for some reason, this set, the one that people are in front of, which frankly doesn't even look that good. It doesn't even look as good as our set. And from what I can tell in the dollar figure crystal, I think they spent more money on it. For one episode. For a single appearance. A single appearance. That is astounding. It's more like...

This one expenditure obviously is not responsible for the hair salon, but it really displays a stunning lack of understanding of what matters in the new media space too. Like no one is showing up for your frigging like aesthetics. Yes. You know, I mean, it's not, we have a great side. We're proud of it. We like really were proud that you guys helped us build it. It looks great. It helps us attract bigger guests, whatever, especially on a podcast, like call her daddy. Like,

the aesthetics are really not the important part. So it just also displays this lack of really understanding of the space. But the other thing that disgusts me with this is Kamala had her big money backers, no doubt about it. A lot of these donations didn't come from big money backers.

They came from like regular people. You wasted their money to pay Oprah a million. Like you took regular working people's money and you siphoned it to Oprah Winfrey and like Beyonce and Katy Perry and these other celebrity stars. That's disgusting. That is utterly grotesque.

It's one more reason why you really should have public funding of elections. Like, it should not be this constant emotional manipulation of the public begging them for dollars to go fund another, like, an Oprah Winfrey show and a Beyonce speech where she doesn't even perform. I just—the whole situation is completely grotesque to me. And another thing I would say, obviously, like, it—

The money really didn't matter. At the end of the day, it really didn't matter. Yeah, it didn't matter at all. You can argue, I think the best case you could say is in the battleground states, she actually performed better than she did in the non-battleground states, meaning that the ads that were played and the field program that was run were at least somewhat consequential in terms of narrowing the gap. Obviously, not enough.

But the money really wasn't the thing. And if Democrats are going to get serious about winning again, which I doubt they will, but maybe you never know, they need to throw the whole the whole of their big donor class overboard. They need, you know, everybody talks about like, oh, sister soldier moments with the left or what? No, no, no. The whole party has been like nothing but a series of sister soldier moments with the left.

left for decades now. You need to have a sister soldier moment with the donor class because you don't even, you don't even need their money. Their money is actually a hindrance and it just leads to grotesque expenditures like a million dollars to an already, like Oprah Winfrey's

Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire. She did not need regular people's million dollars. And what does it say about her that she needed to be paid to come out? And what does it say about you that she needed to be paid to come out and endorse and back your candidacy? Just disgusting. It's just so emblematic of what is deeply wrong at the core of this party's ideology. Yeah, and well, we'll continue within that. Let's go to the next part because this is honestly the craziest one.

is that it appears that Kamala Harris paid Oprah Winfrey a million dollars during the failed campaign. What's even crazier is it wasn't just Oprah. It includes people like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin. There was almost 10 million bucks that were spent behind this, many of which actually did go into the pockets of these event management companies and the stars. Now, here's how naive I am.

I am a very cynical guy. Can I think everybody agree with that? All the people who've been watching for years? I genuinely did not know that celebs get paid for it. I didn't either. I was like, listen. They believe in the cause. They show up. You do a concert. Like, that's what I thought was going on here, too. If I was a billionaire and I was Oprah, right? You know, like, it's one thing, like, okay, you donate money to the campaign. If anything, it should be the other way, right?

You should be giving money to the campaign because they're like, look, she's something I believe in. All of this, oh, all you want is my time. I'm famous. You want me to come and speak? Okay, cool. Yeah, I could do that. Honestly, I would do that now if I was in a position of where they're... But to shake you down for a million bucks, that's crazy. Insane. And then Katy Perry, apparently they also had to drop a...

Alanis Morissette, right? Alanis Morissette. I don't know how to say her name. Alanis. I'm a boomer. I don't even know who this lady is. That's the opposite of being a boomer. Okay. I'm old enough to remember when she was cool. Okay, got it. So I don't even know who this woman is, but whoever she is, they didn't have the money to pay her. And I was like, wait, why?

Like, why is she getting paid? She should just show up. You don't need to be compensated for your time. Like, to me, that's crazy. So anyways, I don't know how all that is going down. But yeah, that was the wildest one. There's one more, too, that we can put up on the screen. They spent half a million dollars a day to pay for the, like, Vegas sphere thing.

thing, which is who did this persuade? Like, really, who did this persuade? And I saw someone who said, you know, this is the perfect emblem of a campaign that had all the money in the world and no ideas.

And, you know, that's basically it summed up right there. All the money in the world. But just like with Hillary in 2016, who also wants to spend Donald Trump, it doesn't matter if you aren't selling something that people don't want to buy. And Trump's campaign fundamentally understood the media landscape vastly better than the Harris campaign did, both with the podcast strategy, but also with a strategy of like, you know, it's

It's cool if we get outspent because Trump knows how to generate, be controversial and divisive and generate a lot of earned media. And he's going to do his thing and that is going to set the tone of the campaign and drive the messaging and persuade people, you know, in favor of our campaign and against Kamala Harris. And that theory of the media was correct.

And the Kamala Harris theory of the media was obviously a major failure. Perhaps one of the biggest like tactical misunderstandings that they made in terms of this campaign, I would say. Oh, absolutely. There's no question. This Vegas fear thing is also just a hilarious one. It's like $450,000 that they spent on...

on this. Listen, the sphere's cool. Per day, per day, right? The sphere's cool. I really want to go to the sphere. I'd like to go see a show there and all that. Yeah, it does look cool. But, you know, we lost Nevada, so how did that work out? That's pretty great. And everyone was saying, like, oh, Kamala's got FU money if she's able to

buy out the sphere. It's like, yeah, it turns out you do have FU money, but you don't got any votes. Yeah, exactly. You're like, Jesus. So this is a colossal spend. And I want to pick up on what you said. There are a lot of hardworking people out there who did give her money. You know, it's not just wine moms and all these other people. A lot of people out there, lower middle class folks and others chipped in five, $10 they believed in the cause and he pissed their money away. And that's

sick. You know, we did a lot of reporting here on the show after Stop the Steal when Trump was shaking down people for $250 million for basically bullshit, right? Whenever you knew that he wasn't going to be able to overturn the election. And there are hardworking plumbers, workmen, whatever, who also gave money to that. And I thought that was wrong. I think this is just as wrong, especially the Oprah thing.

You need to pay a lady. The billionaire lady needs a million dollars to show up and, you know, screw you. Also, Oprah, you know, you should know better than to accept that money because you don't even need it. It's less than marginal at this point. And now when it comes out, you look like a money grub. Any of us going to believe in Oprah endorsement in the future? I'll tell you, I'm not. I truly did not believe it. I thought when Kid Rock and maybe it is on the Republican case, I don't know.

know but like I thought when people just showed up they're like yeah that's what they think okay cool you know whatever yeah that's what I thought too I genuinely thought that as well yeah

It's shocking. It truly is. One last thing on just like the bigger takeaway on political giving. Money matters a lot in politics, but the lower you go down the ballot, the more it matters. So if you want to give political donations to, you know, candidates and causes that you believe in, the place where you're going to have the biggest impact is –

at the lowest, so like your local school board or city council or your state rep or even your state senator, all the way up to members of the House, right? It really makes a difference there. In fact, the fact that Democrats significantly outspent Republicans, both at the House and the Senate level, is probably part of the reason why they were able to stem some of the losses.

at those levels and perform better than they did at the top of the ticket because the money just goes matters more there where you have less media saturation. So in any case, if you're a person out there who does political giving, don't get, don't give it to the top of the ticket. Like it's honestly a waste of your money. It's a waste of your money. Yeah, absolutely. That's such a good point.

Especially with earned media, that's the most important. You know, they have plenty of rich people who are going to give them, you know, I mean, Miriam Adelson gave Trump $100 million. Like Kamala had her big donors as well. They're going to have the money that they need. So just don't give to the presidential level. Yeah, that's right. Because of this. Because of this. Also, don't give to the DNC. We're about to get to that.

- We'll get to that. - Oh yeah. - Let's go to the next part, shall we? - Yeah, oh my God. - Let's put this up there on the screen. It appears that every major Democratic leader in the House will get reelected to their position. - Without a challenge. - As Matt Stoller here says, all the post-election takes mean zero as the House Dems reelect their leaders without any dissent at all.

There will not be any drama. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, he's coming back. Minority Whip Catherine Clark, coming back. Democratic Chief Caucus Chair Pete Aguiar, he is coming back. So number one, two, and three in the House of Representatives, every person is coming back. This is really a sick part. And they say likely unanimously. Unanimously. This is a

part of America's system. In the UK, when you lose, you get your ass booted out of there. And maybe every once in a while, David Cameron, he comes back as a foreign secretary. That's as good as it gets for you. Most of the time, what's that former liberal Democrat guy? He works for Facebook. Gordon Brown, who? When's the last time you heard about Gordon Brown?

When's the last time? Even Boris, he's gone. He's like not even there. He's flitting around the world. He's trying to mount his comeback. Rishi Sunak, he's gonna move to Silicon Valley anytime soon. And you know why? Because in their system, when you lose, you're done. They think, you know, they're like, okay, the party has spoken. We get a new chairperson, you know, a new chair, a new leader, and then they get to mount the campaign as the opposition. And if you lose, then you elect somebody new. It's a very healthy anti-fragile system. In our system, we reward decrepit,

nepotism. You know, in many respects, we have candidates who lose and then they come back. We have House speakers who lose. I mean, people like that should not get rewarded. That's another thing we were talking about with Rick Scott. I don't get it. He was responsible in part for the 2022 losses in the Senate. You don't get rewarded for that. You're supposed to be punished. But in America, for some reason, our system rewards longevity, nepotism, and corruption

all within our parties. It wasn't always this way. Actually, in the past, there were some times in our parties that did have reinforcing mechanisms and they were like, no, if you lose, we elect somebody new. But this time, why would you stick with Hakeem Jeffries or any of these other people? Because they failed monumentally. Jeffries' entire job, a big part of that leader position is to

specifically to dole out funds and to contest the House and to take it back. And as the margin shows for Republicans, it was possible for the Democrats to win. They could have pulled this off if they wanted to, even with the Trump landslide victory. So, I mean, you know, you're supposed to get punished.

And instead he's rolling back in unanimously. Not to mention every one of the people that you mentioned and Chuck Schumer and Jamie Harris and Nancy Pelosi still obviously holds a lot of sway, etc. They all have the same basic philosophy and ideology that was just an approach that was just completely rejected. And if Democrats continue on this track, will continue to be repudiated and could result in like...

they should feel like they are in a place of existential threat to the entire party right now. And to me, what this displays is that

There is no real soul searching going on over on the Democratic side because there's no way that you just go ahead and perform, you know, performative, like perfunctorily reelect the same exact leadership with no even challenger, no resistance. It's going to be unanimous.

If you're engaged in any sort of real soul searching about what just went wrong for your party, how did you lose to this person who supposedly your whole mission of the party since he emerged on the scene was to defeat him and to remove him from the public sphere? How are you not?

questioning the direction of these leaders that have been in place. How are you not questioning everything about your party's approach right now? And so to me, that's what this is indicative of, is they are not interested in really righting the ship. You know, they'll like...

as we're gonna show, they'll blame wokeism, they'll blame this, they'll blame that. They'll say, "Oh, let's just relax. It wasn't that bad. Let's just," like Jim Clyburn said, "Let's all just chill out." You told us this guy was an existential threat, and now you're like, "Let's just not point fingers. Let's not play the blame game. Let's all just chill out."

They are so committed to learning absolutely nothing. And it's no surprise because the people who benefit from learning nothing are exactly these people and the consultant class. It's a racket. The DNC is a racket. These leadership positions are a racket. They all benefit from the money and the power. And so they have no interest

in really rocking the boat. And within the Democratic caucus, like as much as you have a few voices out there who are like, hey, maybe we should do things differently when push comes to shove, they're not willing to make waves. They have bought into this idea that internal Democratic Party unity is the most important value. And, you know, they gleefully watched as there was leadership tumult

on the Republican side and they were so proud that everyone on the Democratic side just frickin' falls in line. And so, yeah, you're gonna just keep marching in the same direction endlessly until someone decides to break that habit. And, you know, does not appear that that is coming anytime soon. - Very true.