44. Trump calls out the Mooch
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Anthony Scaramucci is a major loser who was fired from the administration after only 11 days for his insidious

Insane brother from another mother interview with Chris Cuomo, then with CNN. Great job by Joe Kay. Mr. Scaramucci, what have you done to annoy Donald Trump in the last few days? Because that's what he's tweeting about you. Yes, that was 48 hours ago on Truth Social from the president-elect of the United States. So just, I want you to imagine Dwight Eisenhower preparing for his administration and selecting his cabinet.

But he thinks it's important to opine on the opinions of private citizens in the country. So, yes. So, I inflamed Mr. Trump. I went on CNBC. Joe K is Joe Kernan. And so, Joe Kernan was lambasting me for my decision to be with Vice President Harris. Or even lambasting you. Lambasting, however you want to say it. But anyway, to make a long story short, there it is. The love affair continues, Gatti K. Donald J. Trump is...

It's eight years later. I'm still inside his melon, rent-free in his brain, and he's got to come after me calling me not just a loser, Katty, but a major loser. I'm quite glad that you were a major loser though, because just being a loser would be a bit dull, right? I mean, better to be a major loser. So Katty, I went on a website and I'm having that

tweet made into a needle pointed pillow, which will be on my couch in my office for the duration of the administration. And I just want to point out major loser. It's not that I'm just a loser.

I'm a major loser, so it's nice to be loved by the president-elect of the United States. So that was Donald Trump, and I'm Katty Kaye. Welcome to The Rest Is Politics US. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Katty, what do you want to talk about today? Is that great, though, that the president-elect still has me on his mind eight years later?

And I also want to say this, okay, for all of you out there that say I was in the White House for 10 days, there are journalists listening to this. They do listen to this podcast.

Hey, fellas, I think the president of the United States is the official scorer. And in a truth social tweet 48 hours ago, he said 11 days. So can we go with 11 days? Excuse me. No, because the president-elect this week also says he won the popular vote by 7 million votes, which he did not. So I'm not sure if you're taking Donald Trump as your reference for all facts. I thought you were my partner in all this. Oh, my God. Okay.

Katty, happy birthday. It's your birthday today. God bless you. Okay. You look fantastic. And so maybe at some point we'll get like a skin sponsorship on this podcast because you look great. But it's your birthday. So what do you want to talk about? Well, first of all, I want to say thank you to you because the Lambo's parked outside and the keys I know are being dropped off later this morning. So I'm very happy about that. You really didn't have to, but I am touched. That was kind of you.

The birthday gods have given me the most extraordinary set of appointments from Donald Trump for his cabinet. So we are going to, in the first half of the program, let's talk a little bit about

These cabinet appointments that Donald Trump has announced, everybody thought it was going to be wacky around Donald Trump. I don't think anyone thought it was going to be quite this wacky. I've never seen almost unanimous disapproval like we have seen over the last 24 hours. So we're going to dig into some of those. And then in the second half of the program, we're

We're going to have a think about Elon Musk and his new role in the White House and how much power he is actually going to have. But let's start with these appointments because I think I've mentioned on the program before, I've now covered six presidential elections, which means I've also covered six transitions. And I have never seen the whole of Washington go into uproar, both Republican and Democrat elections.

in the way that they have in the last 24 hours. After Donald Trump won the election, whatever it is, 10 days ago, feels like a lifetime ago, there was a period where the markets were doing well. The first appointments were announced. Congressman Mike Waltz

for National Security Advisor, Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. And people thought things looked pretty normal. Susie Wiles, his campaign chair for Chief of Staff, low-key appointment, efficient woman, ran the campaign very well. And then just in the last day, so on Wednesday, Donald Trump announced Matt Gaetz, the congressman for Attorney General, and

and Tulsi Gabbard, the congresswoman from Hawaii for director of national intelligence. And then the day before that, he announced Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host for secretary of defense. And those three appointments together have completely changed the vibe in this city. And now the feeling is particularly with Matt Gaetz,

that Donald Trump has kind of gone off the deep end in terms of the kinds of people he might choose who are ultra MAGA, not with remotely the kind of qualifications you would normally assume for any of these incredibly important positions. And there are a lot of questions in this town from both Republicans and Democrats about what Donald Trump is doing and how this is actually going to work out. Can I put people inside the melon of Donald Trump? Because obviously I'm living...

in there rent free with these truth social comments. So let me provide some melon insight. He is the crazy uncle that sits on the couch and opines about the government and says, the whole thing is screwed up and I could handle the government with a bunch of amateurs better than the professionals could handle the government. It

It's the same thing in an English football league, same thing in American baseball. You're sitting there as an armchair pundit and you're saying, I could do this better than these guys. These guys stink at their jobs. And so there is some of that, Katty K. Yeah, the disruption that he wants to be a disruptor and he feels all these people are disruptors in the way that he wants to disrupt it. Yes, there is some of that. You guys all suck.

And I tried to listen to you last time. I had Reince Priebus and Paul Ryan and establishment people in my ear. In preparation for this podcast, I listened to three different podcasts where the Trumpster was on there ranting and raving. And there was one where he said, well, you know, when I won the job, I think I had only been to Washington 17 times. And so I was relying on people to tell me who to pick.

And I picked some good people, but I picked some really bad people, i.e. Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, right? Anthony Scaramucci, I would be in the really bad category. Some major losers, in other words. Major losers, major losers. John Kelly. Major loser. Major loser, John Kelly. Look at you laughing. Look at you laughing. You know, I would love to see the

The president-elect of the United States called you a major loser, Katty Kay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. One tweet. One tweet. Have you called your therapist? Have you discussed it? Is it triggering a new fresh round of little bit of insecurity? Not at all. If any,

Anything- You love it. You know what that is? That's like a dog poking you, okay, and asking you to throw the ball. He wants me to throw the ball with him, right? You know, that's what he wants me to do. And I'm going to do that, of course. You know, I'm going to throw the ball with him because I can't help myself. And if Donald Trump had sent out a tweet saying, Anthony Scaramucci, who I love dearly, and it is an incredible human being and a great supporter of MAGA, then you would have been unhappy. Yes. That would have been very horrifying. I mean, I think the point you're-

making is right that there are certain reliable themes in Donald Trump's worldview. People say he's not ideological, but actually I think on some things he is. He thinks trade deficits are bad. He thinks other countries have taken advantage of the United States. He doesn't want America to get involved in foreign conflicts. And he thinks that the administrative deep state is corrupt, overly liberal, and opposed to his agenda. And that's what some of these appointments represent.

Exactly. But there's a little bit more to it, right? I want total control. I want the sycophant of sycophants by my side, and I want them to do everything that I want to do. Whatever it may be, I want total control. And so this is the stuff I was trying to tell people before this thing started.

He wants to take control of this. He wants to centralize this. Yeah. And he is, for some reason, capable of bullying these guys. So he rolled McConnell.

That's Mitch McConnell, former Senate majority leader. He rolled Kevin McCarthy, whose arch nemesis is Matthew Gates. McCarthy and McConnell could have knocked Trump into oblivion on the 7th of January, 2021, but their knees were knocking, Katty. Their knees were knocking. They couldn't do it. And now John Thune-

Senator Thune, do you kowtow and bow down to Donald Trump? Yes, I do, sir. Yes, I do.

You'll have recess appointments for me? Yes, sir. Yes, I will. Roof! Roof! I mean, give me a effing break. So Senator Thune, what you're referring to is the vote that took place in the Senate to choose the next Senate majority leader, the pick that Donald Trump and the people around him, or at least Elon Musk, who I guess is now a proxy for Donald Trump, wanted was Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who they felt was a real MAGA person. But...

The senators themselves, the Republican senators picked as their leader, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, well-known figure in Washington, much more of establishment type, less of a MAGA acolyte. And what's interesting about that appointment is that when they had to vote in secret, they

So nobody knew who was voting for who. The senators actually defied Donald Trump, did not pick his chosen person, but picked somebody who they felt was more in line with their values. Who was his chosen person, Katty Kay? Senator Rick Scott of Florida. Exactly. So Rick Scott was from Florida. Yes, it's all Florida. And what they did was they reviewed all the tapes of these people since Trump left the White House.

Did anybody say something negative about Donald J. Trump? And Rick Scott, he didn't say anything negative, but Thune did. Thune said, 18, you damaged us. You damaged us in 20. You damaged us in 22 months.

You're really hurting our party. And so Trump did not want Thune, but cocaine, cocaine Mitch McConnell. Cady's laughing because Mitch McConnell is the dullest human being that's ever arrived in Washington. Oh, I think that is slanderous. I don't know that you can say that. Maybe his wife likes him very much and finds him interesting. Okay. Well, I'm giving my opinion. Okay. I like Mitch. I mean, I've been a supporter of Mitch's, but he's an extremely dull guy.

Very low key. He has no neck. If you Google him, he's got no neck. Also harsh. I'm just giving the facts here. It's my birthday. I'm feeling magnanimous. Okay. That's why I'm doing all the talking on this then. So this guy is one of the most effective senators in the history of the Senate. He's used the Senate in a way that's gotten Donald Trump three Supreme Court conservative justices.

He's passed rules. He blocked Merrick Garland when Obama tried to put him on. And so his nickname is, because he is motionless and humorless, his nickname is Cocaine Mitch, meaning he must be on a lot of cocaine in terms of his effectiveness. So we call him Cocaine Mitch. Right. 82 years old. He got what he wanted. He got Thune in that position. But Thune did promise Trump

recess appointments. You live in Washington. Let me get the vomit bag because I don't live in Washington. While you're explaining what recess appointments are, I'm going to get the vomit bag out. Go ahead. So senators...

Part of the role of the Senate per the Constitution is to give advice and counsel to the president on appointments and on cabinet appointments. And this is what the Senate usually does. The president-elect names all their cabinet appointments. The Senate goes away and deliberates, does its investigations and comes back with a vote on each of these cabinet appointments.

But Donald Trump has posted out on Twitter or Truth Social that he would like the Senate to confirm these appointments during a recess, which would mean there would not be the usual deliberations and the Senate advice process, and he could get through whoever he wants. It's a way of him getting people in through the back door because the Senate is in recess. He urgently needs to get his people in. Sorry, we don't have time for the usual process. And so he can get them in like that.

Now the question is whether John Thune will agree to that. And there are some senators saying, listen, if we agree to that this time around, a massive precedent in American politics has been broken and the Senate is basically redundant because we've given away all power.

There's some speculation that that's exactly what Donald Trump wants. He's testing the Senate. He doesn't want the Senate, like you said, about all the cabinet appointments. He doesn't want anyone against him, and he certainly doesn't want the Senate against him. So we don't know yet whether the senators will agree to these recess appointments, but let's have a chat about some of them. So should we start with Matt Gaetz? Because he is the one that has all of Washington's hair on fire. I cannot find...

find a single person who has anything nice to say about Matt Gaetz. The congressman from Florida, who is currently being investigated by the Ethics Committee for sexual offenses, which include having sex with a 17-year-old, which is illegal in the United States, the Ethics Committee was due to vote against.

on Friday about whether to release its report into Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz, as the moment he was announced as the nominee for Attorney General, he

He resigned his seat in Congress, so that report won't be released because the Congressional Ethics Committee has no jurisdiction against him. But I just want to read you something. This is the lovely Matt Gaetz, by the way, who has spectacular hair, almost as good a hair as yours, I would say. Terrible, terrible Botox, by the way. I mean, his...

His head is- Worse than yours? Way worse than mine. I have light touch Botox on my forehead, okay? I mean, this guy's got, he's pinned back like Joan Rivers. He's only 42. Yeah. Okay, I'm 142. I know you're picking on me, but I'm 142. This SOB is only 42, but he's pinned back. He looks like he's got saran wrap on his face. Can I just say that is the least of his problems? No, he's a walking disaster. I mean, unfathomable. He's an unethical human being.

And he just resigned from the Congress to prevent that information from coming out. And now the question is, will the Speaker of the House put that information out? Will that information mysteriously leak out? Because there's no one in the House who wants him to be confirmed as Attorney General. And there is certainly no one in the Senate who wants him to be confirmed Attorney General. The thinking is that a whole bunch of names were put before Donald Trump with kind of little video montages, as you suggest,

for Attorney General, which is a very important position for Donald Trump. Donald Trump sees the position of Attorney General, which is basically the nation's chief cop, as the person who is going to clean house of all of the anti-MAGA, deep state stuff. Anytime that there is a

whiff of a lawsuit against Donald Trump, the Attorney General can weigh in on Donald Trump's side. By tradition, though not in the Constitution, the Attorney General is independent of the White House. Donald Trump is saying like, you know, screw that. I want the Attorney General to be my Attorney General. He will defend MAGA. He will defend everything I do, whether it is legal or not legal.

So that's why he wanted somebody like Matt Gaetz, who is also in under investigation for sex with a minor and was even under investigation for sex trafficking of minors.

also feels aggrieved, feels that he's been wrongly persecuted, feels that the justice system has been up against him. And don't you think that's why? I think that might be why Donald Trump picked him, because they're simpatico on this. We've been done in by the Justice Department. Yeah, they're simpatico on this. But also when he picked Jeff Sessions, who was a establishment name, Jeff Sessions allowed for a special prosecutor to review the- That's the first time around in 2016. Yeah, Russian collusion. And

And Trump was very upset about that. He wanted Sessions to leave. Right. He knows that this man will block all special prosecutors related to any potential hassle that Donald Trump could have. And so this is something that he wants to do. He wants full power over the Justice Department without any of the systems in place to make the Justice Department as neutral or as reasonable as possible.

He also wants the FBI taken out of the Justice Department and he wants it to report directly to him. And so that's a Gestapo-like thing. Wait, Donald Trump is getting these videos and montages of people for Attorney General and he doesn't like anyone. And then on Wednesday morning, Trump flies up from Mar-a-Lago to Washington, D.C. to visit President Biden and the Republicans on Capitol Hill. And on the plane with him is Congressman Matt Gaetz.

And the reporting that I've heard is that Matt Gaetz just got in the president's ear and managed to persuade Donald Trump on the plane journey, which is only a two-hour plane journey, up to Washington to nominate him as attorney general. And bang, a couple of hours later, Donald Trump announces it. Does that sound possible to you? Because we all had thought that Donald Trump was coming in, it was much more organized and was going to be way efficient and all normal. Listen, I tried it your way. This is Trump's now speaking. I tried it your way.

Your way sucked in 2017. Now we're going to do it my way, which is I'm going to cast this thing like I cast The Apprentice. That was a successful show for me. So I'm going to have a couple of misfits. I'm going to have a couple of your types of people like Rubio. Okay. And then the question really is though,

is Susie Wiles, okay, who's his chief of staff, a late 60s-year-old woman, a veteran of Washington, a veteran of politics, and a very, very, very smart, and I would say,

In my mind, my observation of her is she's smart and she's moderate. She's good with this, Katty Kay? Well, I think Susie Wiles' genius is to let Trump be Trump, but in a way that is vaguely manageable. And I think that's what she did in the campaign. So she's going to... I mean, the question is,

If this does not go to a recess appointment and the Senate does its normal job, will Matt Gaetz be confirmed? Let me read you something that Senator Mullen of Utah said about Matt Gaetz in 2023, just to give our lovely listeners a flavor of who America's next attorney general could be.

We had all seen the videos he was sharing on the house floor of the girls he had slept with. He'd brag about how he would crush ED, erectile dysfunction meds, so he could go all night. That gives you a flavor of...

of the delightful character that is Matt Gaetz and some sense of why even this town, which is fairly unshockable, is a little bit appalled. So far, you've done two reads. You've called me a total loser, and you're talking about erectile dysfunction drugs. Excellent. Is there anything else you have to read? Because I'm interested in the next read. My God. Anyway...

So that's Matt Gaetz. We could move on to the others or have you got more to say? I mean, I know that we're, I just, I can't over tell you to how many people have texted me saying. Okay. But let me throw this out at you. Okay. I,

I don't think he gets confirmed. Yeah. If he has to go through the normal process, he doesn't get confirmed. I agree with you. But is this like, hey, pal, I'm throwing you to the wolves because I want to get Hexeth and some of these other sort of controversial appointments through? We'll get to Pete with the good hair from Fox in a second. I don't buy...

From reporters I know who have spent much more time, and I want to hear what you say on this, I don't buy that Donald Trump is playing chess with this. I mean, that's too...

sophisticated and interpretation of this kind of, I don't, I just don't think that's what's going on. I think he wants Matt Gaetz. I think that's who he'd like to be as attorney general. I don't know. Do you, do you think this is a sort of, you know, double bluff? No, I think he wants them. And I think if they do a Senate recess, he'll get them. Yeah, me too. And so the question before everybody is how did one man, a 250 year old institution, uh,

that has systems in place, checks and balances. How did one man hijack that system? And what does it say about the leadership in that system? Right. And what does it say about America today that there's nobody inside the system

And I just want to read something to you, okay? It's not an erectile dysfunction read or calling me a major loser, but this is from Alexander Hamilton. And I want to read it to you, okay? The Senate's power to approve or reject a president's top nominees would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters, including those who had no merit

other than that of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them obsequious instruments of the president's pleasure. God, how much we love Hamilton. Such a good writer. How did I do with that read? Was that all right? That was very good. It's the pliancy and the obsequiousness is just delicious. Yeah. And those are his words. But his point is,

Hey, man, you can't put ass kissers in the cabinet who are going to do whatever the president wants. We have to have this flat, decentralized system. That is Hamilton translated by Mr. Scaramucci. Yes, that's my Long Island translation of Hamilton. Look, I think what we've learned, and I really do want to get on to quickly a couple of the other appointments, but-

I think what we've learned is that democracy is partly laws and partly traditions and norms. And if you have somebody that is shameless, they can throw out the traditions and norms, which is chucking out a big part of what holds up democracies. No question about that. I do have one question for Trump, which is,

is he has nominated in Pete Hegseth for the Defense Department, who has also, by the way, very good hair and has been a real advocate of the MAGA view and really anti-interventionist, has said he doesn't want women serving in combat positions in the military, has said that a third of America's top generals are woke, as he calls them, and need to be fired. So diehard Trumpist. His only qualification for this job is that he has served in combat

He's got two bronze stars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but his main qualification is that he defends Donald Trump on television. I do have questions about the competency of some of these people. And even from Donald Trump's own point of view, if he wants to get his agenda through, Pete Hegseth is not necessarily the most competent. Matt Gaetz is not necessarily the most competent, she says with a chuckle. And Tulsi Gabbard, who has now been proposed for Director of National Intelligence, the Congresswoman

from Hawaii, I have had my phone again, kind of full of people from the intelligence community saying, she's never run an intelligence operation. She has no idea about intelligence. And by the way, she doesn't keep secrets. So our allies will not be sharing their secrets with us. So I'm just not sure this is the most effective group that Donald Trump

I'm trying to put this as charitably as possible, the most effective group that Donald Trump could have chosen. What do you think about Tulsi Gabbard, by the way? I've had one conservative saying he likes her, that she's going to disrupt the intelligence community. Let's go over each of these people because I actually know a lot of these people personally. You would find me in 2019 on Tulsi Gabbard's

donor list. She was running for president as a Democrat, and she's a moderate Democrat. She came to speak at one of my conferences. She asked me to make a donation to her. I did. I find her to be very smart. I find her to be very capable of

But there's a difference between being smart and capable in one thing, but not smart and capable in something else. And this is the problem with these billionaires, Cady. They think, well, I'm a billionaire, so I'm smart about everything. But you're actually not. There's blind spots. And you've heard me talk about The Remains of the Day because that book is seminal for me in terms of elites thinking that they're smarter than the common person, but

when in fact that they're not. And whether it's Churchill or Hamilton, they would always tell you there might be madness in the crowds, which is why we have to have minority protections for the people that don't win the election. But there's also wisdom in the crowds. There is wisdom in the crowd. The crowd is telling you that the woke culture in the United States sucks and you better knock it off because we don't like it. That's what the crowd's telling you.

But you got to be very careful now because she's not qualified for that job. Okay. Pete Hegseth is a lovely guy. I've sat on the Fox News couch with him. He's the weekend anchor at Fox News. He's written two books that have done quite well. He's a very smart guy. He went to Princeton. He's got an educated personality. But this is the biggest...

enterprise in the US government. It's the biggest enterprise in the world. It has a $1 trillion budget. Okay. So it's 150 times larger than Exxon. And so Caddy, he doesn't have a executive style. He doesn't have executive management skills. Right. He doesn't have an executive culture. Okay. He's never run a procurement process. Right.

where there's been budgets and you're now going up against these military contractors and you're trying to do the best you can for the American people. He's got some ideas. He doesn't like woke generals. Okay. And remember, I was with Trump on the day that he sent out the tweet. It was July 24th. He sent out a tweet saying, I'm revoking the transgender and the don't ask, don't tell policy for gays in the military.

Okay. And that was a controversy that started in 1993. And it was 30 years of trying to get this thing right for the American military and for the culture of the American military. And in one tweet,

He was revoking. He changed it. Okay. And I went to Trump. I said, you can't do that. You didn't even call Mattis. He got mad at me for saying that. Why would I need to call Mattis? I said, well, he's got a $1 trillion organization that he's running. They put this in process over 30 years. So these people think they're going to come in and change these things.

Super hard to change. Cady, you live in that town, okay? These things have immunological responses. That antigen's going to come in and it's going to be rejected as a foreign organism. I think Hexeth's going to be just way over his head. One thing we should tell our

listeners about Tulsi Gabbard is that Tulsi Gabbard during the Syrian war suddenly popped up in Damascus for a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad without having informed anyone in Washington, D.C. I mean, this is just not the way American foreign policy works. You don't just freelance

And then she said, well, Assad is not an enemy of the United States. She has been criticized for being overly sympathetic to Vladimir Putin. She kind of perpetrated a sort of conspiracy theory that American funded bio labs were

in Ukraine. And that's why the Russians had some kind of justification for invading the country. She suggested that it was actually NATO and America's fault for not listening to Putin's concerns. And again, was that kind of justification seemed to be justifying Vladimir Putin. So there are a lot of,

I mean, you go from the one extreme of people saying she's a stooge and potentially an asset of Russia in Washington to others saying she just doesn't understand the intelligence community and is a threat to the intelligence community because of the way she freelances. Anyway, so those picks have had the whole city up in a kind of complete flurry of knickers and a twist over those. I think the way we should cover Donald Trump, having covered him for four years and got kind of exhausted by doing so,

The first time around, the important thing is to cover what Donald Trump does, not what Donald Trump says. And hyperventilating about every tweet he puts out is not very helpful to us or to the American public or to our listeners around the world. But who he nominates is an indication of his policies and his worldview and what he wants to do. And that's why we spent the first half of this program talking about what are really quite extraordinary picks for

for his cabinet. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back to talk about Elon Musk and Doge and how billionaires are running the show, including Antony maybe.

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We're back with the rest of Politics US. I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Oh, I'm Katty Kay. Katty, happy birthday again. Can we say that just every few minutes? Happy birthday. Yeah, I think so. What do you think? It's a special day. I like it. What are you doing for your birthday, by the way? Your kids are coming over or what's going on? Yeah, my daughter has...

flown in because it's unfortunately a rather big birthday. So my daughter has flown in from Chicago, which is very nice. She's an astrophysicist, but who's also a very good pastry chef. So I have high hopes for dessert tonight, a dinner, because I'm hoping that she's going to bake me something rather special and I have a terrible sweet tooth, so that will be good.

And my son, who lives in D.C., is going to be here too. And then I have a few friends coming for dinner. That's it. But I'll spend the afternoon hanging out with my daughter, which is always a treat. I'm thrilled for you. And I've met your children. You've got great kids. God bless you. And it's a big...

It's a big 6-0 for you. Thank you for telling everybody. But I love the fact that you own that. 660 is the new 40. God bless you. It's good. We're both there and we're going to be doing fine. Yeah, well, I'm turning 61, which is coming in a couple of months. I won't be sending you a Lamborghini, but I will be sending you a new t-shirt because that one is abysmal. You don't like this, Katty? I don't like that t-shirt at all. Anthony, for those of you who are listening, is wearing a t-shirt that starts with Dear Santa on it. It's November the 14th. I know what day it is.

you can't wear Christmas t-shirts before December. Oh my God. This British protocol is upsetting to me. I feel like it's Christmas every day. Let's talk about somebody else who thinks that it's Christmas every day. Who, that Elon Musk? Yes. So, Katty, can I give my 30-second narrative and get your reaction? Go. Trump is going to knock him right through the ropes. He's already sick of him. He doesn't want him taking any credit for his electoral success.

He doesn't want him hanging out at Mar-a-Lago anymore. The office of DOGE, Department of Governmental Efficiency, it has to be established by the Congress. Okay, so you can have a Simpson-Bowles, and those of you who don't know what that is, it was a commission that Barack Obama put together about 10 years ago and basically had a Republican and a Democrat and said, okay, make some efficiency recommendations for the government. They made them. People looked at them and said, okay, we're going to throw those in the garbage.

And so DOGE, Department of Governmental Efficiency, is literally knocking out Vivek and knocking out Elon. Tell me I'm wrong. So that's a great way of thinking about it because I've been wondering that. There's been a lot of people getting in a froth about the idea that suddenly the American government has been taken over by billionaires who are going to have a huge amount of influence over the way that contracts are distributed and

a way that investigations into their own corporations are conducted, and that Elon Musk will actually do what he said he wants to do, which is cut $2 trillion from US government spending. But I'm kind of with you that...

This Department of Government Efficiency is like any other commission. It's not a department. That's a joke. You can't just suddenly invent a department just because you want there to be one. And the saying in Washington is always, if you want to make sure something goes and dies a death and never comes to see the light and nothing ever happens, create a commission. And that's effectively what this is. But I do think Elon Musk's role in government is

to the extent that there is a role, is worth exploring because it is incredibly unusual. In fact, I just can't think of another situation in which you've had somebody with his wealth and his interests in government contracts

having the kind of access and influence he's even had up until now. Are we going to be looking at one of the more corrupt administrations in American history, do you think? Well, it's starting that way. So the question is, is McConnell and Thune, are they going to block it? Or is McConnell and Thune going to step in? Is Trump going to get impeached again? He's been impeached twice.

Is he going to get impeached again? Now you say, no, how could he, Anthony? They've got a two-year mandate, meaning he owns the Republican House and he owns the Senate. But will it be too egregious? Will they get together?

Because, Cady, you know I know a lot of these senators. I write checks to these people. They hate the guy's guts. They hate him. And then they go out and say, oh, we're with Donald Trump, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he humiliates them. And then they go home and tell their wives, man, I really hate this guy. So is the bubble going to burst or does he have a two-year mandate? That's the question. What do you think? Elon Musk, who has multiple different companies-

In a way, it seems to me has the American government over a little bit of a barrel because the US Department of Defense relies heavily on Starlink and SpaceX for a lot of its work, getting astronauts to the International Space Station, getting stuff put up into space, getting stuff taken down from space. And because Boeing tried to compete and failed,

Starlink and SpaceX is kind of all the US has at the moment to do that work, which is why he's had $10 billion worth of government contracts over the last 10 years. But there are also all of these investigations and lawsuits against him, I think,

over 20 investigations and lawsuits into various bits of his company, particularly around environmental concerns. Because for example, I think SpaceX launches from next to a national park in Texas.

The Environmental Protection Agency is investigating SpaceX for destroying the habitat of a bird species in that park. Elon Musk is pissed off with the amount of red tape and the amount of regulations around his business. He famously says he can build a rocket to get to Mars.

quicker than a functionary in the EPA can push a piece of paper across his desk. So whatever happens to Donald Trump in the next two years, is there room here for Elon Musk to, I don't know, cut the regulations that impinge on him, get favorable treatment for his companies? What do you think? Okay. So I'm going to flat out answer that and say no. He can't do it. That's interesting. Can't do it. And let me explain why

he's the current teacher's pet. When I got hired into the White House, Kellyanne Conway said, be careful. You're going to be the teacher's pet for two weeks. Everyone in the room is going to hate you because you're now Trump's new toy. He's going to invite you on Air Force One. He's going to want you to do this. He's going to want you to do that. Be careful. And I was trying to be careful, but of course I blew myself up. 11 days later, I was fired.

Elon Musk has exhausted Donald Trump's attention now. But how do you know that? Because he's hanging around still in Mar-a-Lago. No, because I know, I know, I know, I know, because I know the personality. Apparently he's there at every meal and he's getting standing, he got a standing ovation in Congress this week and Trump was like my buddy Elon. Katty, I got the election wrong, but I did get the departure of Joe Biden, right?

And I'm telling you, I know Trump. Okay. I know the son of a bitch. He is done with Elon Musk. Okay. And so Elon Musk, the Doge thing puts him on ice. He can't get close enough to the government. You live in that town. You know the immunological system of that town. They're going to reject Elon Musk.

Okay. And once Trump signals to guys like Gates and Hegseth that he's done with Elon Musk, Elon Musk is going to be on the outs. Okay. And by the way, there's a knife fight going on right now, Katty.

There's a knife fight. I know this from people that talk to me. Suzy's fighting with people on the transition team. They're backbiting each other. They're backstabbing each other. They're leaking on each other. Okay. And Trump is enjoying it. Okay. And so what will happen? There's a fight right now going on about the treasury secretary, uh,

We'll have to see who wins it. I hope Scott Besant wins it, frankly, because I think he's the Mnuchin-like safe pair of low drama hands.

Okay, it's not that I dislike Howard Lutnick, but Howard Lutnick is too much like Donald Trump. And what will end up happening is they will bash each other's skull in with lots of high drama. But SENT is not that. But Musk is, you know, the richest man in the world famously. And it's not just Musk. He brings with him all of his cohort of kind of Silicon Valley billionaires who put money into getting Donald Trump elected and now expect something in return. I don't know that you can just suddenly say to Musk,

sorry, I'm done with you. Sit on that commission and I'm not going to listen to you because Musk helped get Donald Trump elected. The guy's as rich as Cretaceous. I mean, he's not going to go quietly into the good night. But that's another story. Okay. You have to, hello, President Biden, could you please explain to me

why you cut Elon Musk out of the electric vehicle summit. What I love about Elon Musk is what a baby he is. He's offended still that he was cut out of an electric vehicle summit by Joe Biden in 2021. He's offended that

In 2020, California had shut down restrictions around COVID, and so he had to move Tesla factories out of California. I mean, this guy is just like Donald Trump. I mean, he holds grudges. I think, and I'm going to make a prediction right here on the rest of politics US, Elon Musk will be a Democrat.

by 2028. Okay? Yeah. You think I'm wrong? He was a Democrat. No, I think there's a strong chance. I think he's going to be like, hey, Mooch. He could swing back again. Mooch, you were right about these crazy people. Okay, I really think he's going to do that. Okay? Can I say one more thing about Elon Musk? Because he's been hanging around in Mar-a-Lago with his four-year-old son.

who he's been kind of showing off to everybody as well. Do you know what his four-year-old son is called? I don't. Oh, pop quiz time. Guess. I don't know, like Apple or like these people name people like weirdly. So what is it like? X. The son is called X? Yeah. But like what's on the birth certificate, X? So it's Greek kind of letters and it's pronounced, but you can all look it up.

X Ash 12, but he's known as X. Look, I mean, you know, this is why he's worth 240 billion and you and I are worth no billion. I mean, what am I, what are you going to do? Okay. Let's talk about Vivek Ramaswamy, who is a friend of yours, right? You know him. I like him. Okay. I would consider him...

an acquaintance. I wouldn't say we're close enough yet to be friends, but we have good chemistry together on these shows. He's quite civil to me. I'm quite civil to him. Remind us how he made his money. So he's been a tech, a venture capital and a biotech entrepreneur. He's probably worth $300 or $400 million according to his financial disclosures that he filed with the FEC. So he's kind of poor compared to Elon. He's poor compared to Elon, but he's very rich compared to the rest of the world. And he's

A young man that's done very well. He's very thoughtful. There was something on X the other day, which I listened to. It was him speaking at his high school graduation at age 18. And he was very put together. He's a very thoughtful guy. He's a mature guy for his age. Now, the people that don't like him, and there'll be people listening to this podcast that don't like him,

say that he sent out a little bit of misinformation. They sent out some lies. He's a politician. When new politicians lie, Caddy K, when their mouths are moving, okay, that's when politicians lie. And so you can't expect somebody to not lie who's a politician. And so he has a little bit of that in his personality. But I generally think

He's a smart guy, family guy. And again, I'm going to disagree with him a lot of different things. This whole deportation thing and the rescission of birthright citizenship is

It's an unmitigated disaster for the country. He's for it, which I'm shocked by. And I'll just point out to people that love business here in America and love the culture here in America, America for 200 years has been a welcome mat for the rest of the world. If you start revoking birthright citizenship, and apparently they're going to sign an executive order on January 20th- I've heard that too. To revoke it. So what does that mean? If you're born to

a woman, your mom is not here appropriately or she's here illegally and you were born here. Well, you know what? You're not a citizen. You don't have the rights of a citizen. I think that's going to be a disaster for the country. And I think these people don't understand when you do things like that, you scare people and very poor people come to this country and get rich. Sergey Brin, Elon Musk. Yes, Elon Musk. This is the irony of this, right?

either an immigrant or the son of immigrants who are- 100%. On this anti-immigrant thing. How do you see Elon Musk, by the way, and Vivek Ramaswamy getting on together as heads of Dojin? It doesn't escape me. The irony of this doesn't escape me that you're getting two people to run one department that's committed to efficiency, but that's kind of by the by. So how do they get on? I think Vivek is a very smart EQ sort of a person who

He'll let Musk run the pack. He knows his future. He wants to be a politician in his future. He sees himself as a future president. He'll want to have a good relationship with Elon Musk.

They'll get along well. But will they get anything done? And the answer to that is they will absolutely not get anything done. Will the US Congress set up another cabinet position like they did for the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 called the Department of Governmental Efficiency? I believe they will not do that.

Now, I could be wrong about that, but you tell me, Katty, you live in that town. These people don't like things like that. No. And anyway, half the things that they want to do with this Department of Government Efficiency, cutting the amount of spending they want to cut,

and cutting the number of employees they would like to cut. And by the way, I love this idea that you can send them a note and tell them what you think should be cut. That's kind of like going to lead to their inboxes being completely inundated, which presumably somebody will have to look at, which sounds sort of inefficient to me. But I reached out to somebody who understands the workings of Senate appropriations and things much better than I do, who's got a long history of working on the hill around these things.

And she told me that actually you'd have to have 60 votes to turn those recommendations anyway into action because you can't do them through the parliamentary procedure that's known as reconciliation. That's not what that applies to. And they're just not going to get the 60 votes. So the two of them are going to kick their heels, I think, for two years and produce this report. And we'll see what actually happens to it. So either...

Elon Musk, still a big figure. Antony thinks he's already on the outs. My sense is he's still got some credit in the bank of Donald Trump, but the prospect of these two huge egos. He's going to be a major loser sometime in his presidency. I don't know about if he's going to be a major loser because-

He is so rich and he funded Donald Trump's campaign so much and helped him win Pennsylvania that let's see whether he actually gets the major loser treatment. See, you know what the beauty of all this is? The only thing that might save the country, Katty Kay, is these people will all destroy each other.

Okay, because of the nature of these people. And so that self-destruction will slow down the grind that they're going to try to put on the American people. I spoke to somebody who's kind of senior in the intelligence side in the House, an ex-CIA who said to me, you know, is it better that we have incompetent people who can't carry out the vision or competent people who can carry out the vision? And the jury is kind of out on that. But we're looking at the moment...

quite a lot of incompetence. Season two of the Trump...

presidential episodes going to be as bad and as chaotic as season one, Katty Kay. It's going to be crazy. We are in for a wild, wild ride, and we hope that you will stay with us on the ride. That's it for this week. We will see you next week on The Rest Is Politics US. And for those of you who are founding members, thank you again for your support. And we've got a special episode for you, a bonus episode on Saturday, where we will take your questions.

And you can sign up to be a founding member of the Rest Is Politics US on restispoliticsus.com. Come and join us. Happy birthday, Katty Kay. We'll see you guys next week. Thank you, Anthony. Thank you.