Musk Tea, Schumer Fury, and Tariffs Hit the Heartland With North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm back, newly independent on Substack with my new newsletter, The Red Letter, where you can get all of my insider reporting on what's happening at the highest levels of power. So please consider becoming a paid subscriber. My first piece was a splash.

Because I reported on the story that everyone in Washington has been talking about for weeks, but no one was willing to write. And it's probably because it was about two of the most powerful people in town, and that is Elias.

Elon Musk and Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles. It turns out that Susie Wiles just cannot deal with Elon Musk and has complained to President Trump about his freelancing. I have heard from my sources that administration officials are just

furious at Elon Musk. They hate how dismissive he is, how he destroys their best plans in a matter of minutes. And they hate how he treats Susie, who they are very loyal to. There are a bunch of deputy chief of staffs in the White House. It's very top heavy. And all of them, they were brought in by Susie Wiles and they're loyal to her. And they don't like how he treats her like a effing secretary, as one of my sources puts it. They also think he's a weirdo for sleeping

on a car in the Eisenhower Executive Office building where a bunch of security guards have to stand outside. Obviously, Suzy Wiles is the one who has to deal with the incoming from cabinet secretaries and members of the House and Senate when his doge cuts are impacting their agencies or their constituencies.

He treats cabinet secretaries like they're messenger boys, which explains the New York Times piece where Marco Rubio and Elon Musk had a blowout fight at a cabinet meeting over the cuts at State Department. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had to tell Elon Musk to stop trying to cut air traffic controllers since they're in such short supply.

But, of course, at the top of the meeting, Elon Musk reminded all of them that he was the one who made companies worth billions of dollars, not them. Although there are a lot of high net worth individuals in that room, like Treasury Secretary Scott Besson and Howard Letnick of Cantor Fitzgerald, who is the Commerce Secretary Linda McMahon of WWE. So it's not like he was talking to a bunch of slouches.

So you can only imagine how he treats officials. As one Wild Place source told me, it's no longer simmering resentment. People are effing furious. I also learned from Trump's pollster that he's never even polled Musk's favorables, even though all the public polling shows that they're diving. That suggests to me that they're afraid of Elon Musk or that his ego is so big that

that they can't even bear to show him what the public polls are showing. They had to do massive cleanup after Musk garbled on Fox News that he was going to cut waste and fraud and entitlement programs. It was on a show that they did not want him to do. He does not normally do television on his own. At the same time,

These officials, they're terrified of him because Trump is sticking with him. He did just write another check for $100 million. He is the richest person in the world by many times. I think Trump and Elon Musk are in it for the long haul. As long as Musk does not get too clingy, Melania is certainly not like that.

So for more of my in-depth reporting on what's going on inside the White House and at the highest levels of power, subscribe to my newsletter on Substack, The Red Letter, and you can read my latest piece, Fear and Loathing in the West Wing.

On this show, I speak to Republican Governor of North Dakota, Kelly Armstrong, who I met when he was the lone congressman representing the state. We talk about all of the latest news coming out of Congress. We talk about how Speaker Mike Johnson managed to pass the funding bill with just two votes to spare.

the rage that Democrats are feeling against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and why he was in a pickle. We also talk about how Trump's tariffs are impacting the soybean farmers in his state and the realities of passing a budget-neutral tax reform bill that includes Trump's promises like no tax on tips and overtime and still bring back state and local tax deductions. How does it all add up?

Governor Armstrong, thanks so much for coming on the show. Last time we spoke, it was the Republican National Convention. We were sitting in the stands. I was trying to record a podcast, the two of us. You were...

still a congressman at that point. And my memory gave out, not my actual memory, though. Oh, that wouldn't be that surprising. But the memory on my Zoom card. And so we lost that. And it was a really great conversation. So I'm happy that you actually came back on the pod again after that technical glitch. Yeah, you're in the middle of all the D.C. stuff. I'm in the middle of a legislative session in North Dakota. But it's always great to see you. Yeah. What's it like to be governor now? Govna?

The meetings start when I say they start. So it's cool. Oh, you know, I served in the state. Yeah, I served in the state Senate and then obviously Congress. So somebody else was always in charge of my calendar. Now we get to be in charge of our calendar. Weren't you the sole member of Congress, though, of North Dakota? I always used to say I did the job of 34 Texans.

Okay. I got to ask you, because you were in the Republican Study Committee. You have been close to leadership. You followed them closely. You knew Mike Johnson well, right? Speaker of the House. How did he pull it off last week by passing that continuing resolution with just two votes? I think a lot of people, there were a lot of doubters out there.

Yeah, I mean, not the least of which is a guy who's been there for six years and couldn't get, I mean, they're just Republicans in Congress that knee-jerk against voting against any CR. I think, one, Mike has a great relationship, like, at a personal level with a lot of people. They trust him. But two, I mean, I think...

When the president of the United States gets involved and says, I want you all to pass it, I think the real vote was the budget resolution, right? That kind of teed up for this. And I think it caught the Democrats flat-footed because they didn't think it would happen that way. Got it.

And so you also think that the power of Elon Musk and his ex-account and Trump's very stocked political armor may help as well. Like, you know, Tony Fabrizio and Chris LaCivita, these outside groups that are applying pressure saying we're going to primary you. Although Thomas Massey said he's of Kentucky

he's always the no vote on continuing resolutions and funding the government. He was like, bring it, because he's actually fought off a few of these primary threats from the right. He's like, I'm more MAGA than you are. Pretty bold. But do you think that had anything to do with it as well? Well, I think, I don't know necessarily about the outside groups. I think different members of Congress respond to different types of pressures. But I think when the president, you know,

I mean, you've got a two-vote majority, essentially. And I mean, Thomas is my friend, and he can frustrate me a lot, but that shouldn't have surprised anybody. Thomas has always been in that position. For as long as I've known him, he's remarkably consistent. So I think he'll be okay as well. But I mean, I just think, one, the combined trust

that Mike has garnered with the conference and to the president weighing in saying this is what the White House wants. I think those two combinations got it. And what I'm hopeful is in the future, some of our friends realize that if we stick together, we can actually do some really good things. You know, the one thing that I do think is interesting is that they essentially passed the Biden budget that they refused to pass in December. It's the same continuing resolution for the Biden funding bill.

Yeah, I think and I think that's where the Democrats really got themselves into trouble when there's talking about this partisan budget deal and they can't support it and they can't do any of this. And all of a sudden everybody's looking at it and going like, you guys literally voted for this in December. But I think the game changer to that is coming in and actually doing what you said you were going to do, which is, I mean, for lack of a better term, upset the apple cart, so to speak, with the permanent bureaucracy in D.C. You mean by doge?

Yeah. And by like, well, it turns out all of these agencies are under the executive branch and not their own independent universes that Congress has kind of treated them like that for the last, I don't know, 20 years. And now the head of the executive branch said, you know what, we're going to take over the executive branch again.

Well, that's still to be decided in the courts. I think a lot of these agencies are fighting back, including Voice of America. I've been writing a lot about that in my newsletter. You should check it out. I used to be an intern at Voice of America, so I have a lot of connections there. I was there on election night in 2008, covering it as a young college student at American University. Well, not a young one. I guess I was a senior at that point. We were all young in college.

Right. Okay. Chuck Schumer, he's not having a great week. He's getting so much shit for voting for the continuing resolution to keep the government open along with a handful of other Democrats that he had to cancel his book tour. Yeah, I just read that. That's, I mean... Security threats. Yeah, the protest mentality. I find that unfortunate even for...

You know, that kind of stuff. But I think to a little bit, you know, when when when you thrive on that kind of politics in general, I think when it comes back, it's a little shite and fraud. But I think Senator Schumer was in a really I think the unique position with this is I think the Democrats have been caught.

incredibly flat footed since Trump got sworn in. Uh, they decided this is where they were going to pick the fight. Uh, it's a lot easier to do in the house, right? I was in the minority for four years in the house. It's easy to show up and vote. No. Uh, when you get onto the Senate side and you are basically like what we just talked about voting for the exact same CR you all voted for in December. Uh,

I think a lot of his- Slightly different. There were some changes, like they changed the defense spending around and a lot of- Yeah, but I mean, there weren't, I mean, it wasn't Christmas treat up. There were some anomalies in it. I mean, they're never identical, but it was substantially the same one. But I have a feeling that-

Senator Schumer had a lot of vote no and hope yes members of his own caucus on the Senate side. And we'll see if there's, I mean, it feels like there might be a little more long-term momentum to this push, but really where you'll end up seeing it is if it's coming from Democratic senators. I mean, whether it's coming from House members, Democrats on the House side calling for it, I've never found that to necessarily translate over to the Senate side.

Okay, so by Saturday morning, you know, I think that the hatred towards Chuck Schumer obviously is uniting moderates and liberals because by Saturday morning, I got a text from a major Democratic donor. He's a moderate, and he texted me, "'I have never been a fan of AOC "'and strongly disagree with her on most issues, "'but I would seriously consider supporting her "'if she challenges Chuck Schumer. "'That's how desperate many of us are "'for changing the leadership of the Democratic Party.'"

Meanwhile, I talked to a leadership source yesterday who told me that

Schumer is playing the long game and that there was no off-ramp if they shut down the government. And obviously, Senator Fetterman said the same thing, too. He voted to pass the bill. He said there was no off-ramp. But, you know, this person also said that he that these Democrats that are angry at Schumer are going through the five stages of grief. And one of them is denial. This person's words, not mine. You are in Congress. Do you really believe there was no off-ramp for Chuck Schumer if they shut down the government?

As somebody who has firmly believed that Republicans always get blamed for a shutdown, as we were moving through this, and as governor, you start thinking about what happens during a shutdown and what you have to apply to, I think the Democrats lose that shutdown fight. And I don't think they did have an off round. And I think there were a couple, if I was giving them political advice, I would say,

Your rhetoric in the five days leading up to the shutdown was going to be impossible to deliver on. And then in the last 48 hours before the shutdown, when John Thune can go out and said they haven't made an offer yet. Like, what are we what are we what are we debating? They haven't even made an offer to us. All I know is they're in these closed meetings yelling at each other nonstop and then they come out. So I think two things. I want to think if it was in the House, I think it would be a much more effective.

hot button issue because these elections are starting now. I've already seen some of my colleagues announcing for reelection. But Senator Schumer is not even up, I think, until 2028. The long game is what the long game is. But I also the one thing I would agree on with that donor is... But he's up for leadership in 2026. Sure. But...

I think we get caught up in 48-hour news cycles, and I always just feel like people end up coming home. The question is going to be if they can actually mount an effective strategy, because I haven't seen one yet. I mean, all cutting the same video and swearing and sounding like you're tough is not really an appropriate way in which to mount a minority opposition. I mean, the Republicans were pretty crazy when they were in the minority, too. I was there. Yeah, they're pretty nuts.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, like getting into catfights with Nancy Mace. I mean, it was, there was a lot, there was a lot of a lot of carnival going on there, especially during those, those hours when they ousted Kevin McCarthy. Obviously, you know, I wasn't a huge fan of that move. I felt like every time we went onto the floor of the house before we went in to take another vote, we stepped on a rake and then went in and had a self-induced, like, I mean,

I think that I still think that was just a terrible thing. But I would also say the first two years in the minority under, you know, Gates. Well, but we need to say anything else. Well, except but I think that's interesting, though, because you're talking about the last two years in the minority, not the first two years. Right. The first two years were Schiff's secret bunker impeachment and oversight. And by the time we got to the presidential election.

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I want to keep going, though. So I want to talk about tariffs and the Doge sledgehammer. So half of soybeans...

half of the US's exports of soybeans are grown in North Dakota, where you're governor, and they're sold to China. So I can't imagine that this trade war isn't having a major impact on your constituents. And I also learned that a vast majority of fertilizer that North Dakota uses is bought from Canada, where we're also in the middle of a trade war.

What's going on? Are farmers telling you that they're worried about tariffs? Are they feeling it already? So when I first ran for Congress in 2018, China put a bunch of retaliatory tariffs on like Midwest egg Trump supporting states. So I've been through the soybean fight. And our farmers and ranchers out here, I mean, this is Trump country. At the same time, we're a commodity based economy. We need markets. I think it's a little easier to deal with in the short term, particularly since the

There hasn't under the last, I mean, under the last four years, we haven't had a single trade deal done. Like,

After USMCA was signed, when I first got to Congress in 2018, there hasn't been a real trade deal done either way. But we also farm right to the border. We have a different relationship with Canada, I think, than most other states. And so as governor, I keep in touch with my colleagues on the state, on the provincial side in Canada and make sure we have those relationships going. And we will always keep the White House informed of what we are seeing and where we see stress points coming on some of this stuff.

But I'm a pretty big China hawk. I spent enough time in D.C. understanding what China is doing. I think the more that the United States can build legitimate off-ramps from the Chinese Communist Party, I think that is going to be better for the long-term national security of this country. I do want to make sure that we continue to have as good of relationships as we possibly can with our Canadian partners. What are the stress points that you're seeing?

- Well, I think for us, we have a lot of people actually, North Dakota is unique other than Vermont a little bit. We're actually the only state that really farms to the border.

a little bit in eastern Montana, but it's mostly pasture land and then it's forest and mountains and urban. So we have, I mean, we have families. I had a northern border hearing here when I was still on judiciary. We have families that farm on both sides of the border. We interact on both sides of the border. So we just have very close relationships with our Canadian friends. And we want to make sure that in the grand scheme of resetting the United States place in global trade, that we're not

ruining those generational relationships. And have you reported anything to the White House yet? Yeah, we I mean, we were out there for three days. And I mean, we're, we're honest with them. We want what are you telling them? Telling them that you go deal with the best deal you can get. But at the end of the day, we're gonna have, I mean, we have relationships, and we want you to be aware of what they are and making sure that we can continue to do that.

Are they offering any USDA subsidies? Because that was what helped the first time around with the tariffs. You know, I saw Secretary Collins had talked about some of that. You know, it'd be really great if we could get Congress to get a farm bill passed. We're about a year and a half behind on that. That's necessary even before this happens. But when you get through into that point, yeah, we'll have to talk about how some of that looks and if they're moving forward.

Is the Doge Axe coming for USDA? Not so much that I've heard of. I mean, and I think that's one of the things we also really try and communicate, not just with the White House, but with the cabinet secretaries, is that, you know, we got a lot of empty federal buildings in D.C. that people...

The work-life balances seem to be tilted out of line. You don't even have to go to me. Mayor Bowser will tell you the same thing. But our on-the-ground people like with USDA out here have always been really good. And we do really send that message. We're like, don't let the DC bubble fight about the bureaucracy. Get caught up with the people that are doing really good work on the ground out here.

Yeah. Speaking of doge cuts, like, are you feeling the downstream economic effects? Because obviously you do have USDA workers in North Dakota and federal workers in Dakota, North Dakota. You know, there's been a couple probationary, you know, employees and stuff that we've been reached out to about. But for the most part, a lot of it seems like noise at this point.

That doesn't mean it's not coming, but I just tell everybody who's worried about it, whether it's an agent. I mean, some of my own agencies like DEQ, Department of Mineral Resources, they have real federal connotations. My answer is don't worry so much about the rhetoric when there's a specific problem. Let us know because we will reach out and try and get an answer to that specific problem.

Have you gotten anyone's jobs back? We have. I'm not that I'm not really sure we've had any that we've asked for back at this point. We had a couple cut from like I know there is a BIA position that we think the person doing it was pretty good. And we're working on that. What's BIA? Bureau of Indian Affairs. OK, so you're trying to get them their job back. Well, we have relayed the message. Lucky for me, I know the secretary of interior.

Oh, yeah, right. Doug Burgum, your former governor. So and they've been great. They can. I mean, the one difference, by the way, when we were out there for NGA and RGA, I think one of the things is, is and we noticed this during the first Trump administration, you don't always get the answers you want from any administration, Democratic administration, Republican administration. But their lines of communication have been just so exceptionally better. And we even noticed that in the first term. And the fact that you can actually get a live human on the phone to express your concerns has really been beneficial.

I really want to get back to USDA, though. Are you sure that you are going to get the funds from USDA to help you with the tariffs? Well, no, I'm not sure we're going to get the funds from USDA. I don't think anything that hasn't been funded yet is part of that. I think that'll be a decision made through Congress. I mean, first of all, it's new funds.

I know the administration does a lot of great things, but eventually Congress has to approve the money. Yeah. I want to talk about tax cuts, right? Because that's the big bill, tax reform. That's what Trump really wants. And of course, that includes energy, which affects you and immigration too. They're looking to add money to Congress.

counter-migration at the border. But it just seems like this is not going to be an easy feat. It's just not a given that this is going to happen. When they tried to pass this, when you were in Congress in 2017, there were, I believe, 17 Republican defectors who decided not to vote for Trump's tax reform bill. Now there's only room for three.

And, you know, both chambers, you know, they have to agree on the budget. The Senate parliamentarian has to decide if it's budget neutral since they have to pass it through reconciliation. And President Trump has promised a lot of gimme's like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime.

It just doesn't really seem to add up in terms of making it budget neutral. Plus, you don't have people there with like institutional wonky knowledge about like how this works. Like, you know, you had Speaker Paul Ryan at the time who was obsessed with tax reform. That was like his legacy and his baby. And I'm just sort of wondering, what do you think about this? Like, do you think that they're actually going to be able to pull this off and pass tax reform? Yeah, I do. I think the first question is you've got to answer SALT.

I mean, our majority makers- I just want to slow down for a second. SALT is state and local tax deduction. And there are a number of Republicans that come from states that pay very high state and local taxes, like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. And they use that. They deduct their federal taxes from their state and local taxes to make up for that. Yeah.

Yeah, red members in blue states. Yeah, and they lost that ability to do that with Trump's first reform bill, and they want it back. They want those deductions back. Or they want to compromise on it. And I think that's the first question, because those are your majority makers, right? Lee Zeldin, who's now the secretary of EPA, he didn't pull off the race for governor, but he is the reason. I mean, he's as big a reason as anything. He's from the Hamptons, right? Yeah.

Yeah, he's from Montauk. Yeah, but he's as big a reason as anybody why we actually have a Republican majority. But those Republican members in California and New York and those areas, once you get salt figured out, then I think the second question is,

Ways and means in the Senate, figuring out what the numbers are. And once I think one salt figures out, you get the extenders. I mean, I don't think the fight about whether it's permanent or just another extender is actually going to be. I mean, they'll end up negotiating that out. And then I think, again, it comes down to I think we've shown both with the budget resolution and with the CR. The president goes all in on this and they get a plan that he supports. I think we can pass it.

With salt as the caveat, because that's existential to those guys. But I think President Trump actually- Then how do you make it budget neutral? Is it like, you make a bill that's just like too big to fail, but then how does it become budget neutral? That's the problem. Because you can't also do no tax on tips and no tax on overtime. It's like, the numbers don't add up. Yeah, but I think those parts of that, I mean, those pieces are the ones that I think fill in

later in the process. I think it's one, like the PACE program, the small business pass through, figuring out what those dollars amount. I think the first fight is really going to be whether or not how they determine to budget this and what they use as the baseline. And then the second fight is going to be SALT. And then once they get those two things figured out, I think they'll get momentum to get everything else.

It doesn't feel like there's a lot of momentum, though. I feel like everyone is talking about doge and tariffs. And before tax cuts were passed in 2017, it was like tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. And, you know, there's a lot of questions over whether this is really going to cause like an economic spurt like they claim that it will, because it's not really a new tax cut. It's just an extension of the existing tax cuts.

Yeah, but the flip side to that is the failure is it would actually be a tax increase once these cuts expire. Yeah, you're right. If they expire, it would be a tax increase and nobody wants a tax increase. Obviously, Democrats are going to say if they touch entitlements in any way, that's going to be huge. And

you know, Elon Musk just went on Larry Kudlow's show and said, we have to cut the waste and fraud of entitlements. And he kind of garbled the waste and fraud part. So that didn't go over so well. And also he's caused Social Security. He's called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. But, you know, Democrats are going to spin this as, and maybe rightfully so, as a big break for corporations and for tech billionaires and for Trump's

rich friends. Like, how do you counter that narrative? Well, and I think that, by the way, I think there's some voices on the Republican side that would say, make these tax cuts, go more to small businesses, more to that and not deal with the international, uh, you know, the, the international corporations and all of that. So I don't, I'm not entirely sure that all of that works out, but I would say on the Elon Musk versus Trump on social security and Medicaid, uh,

after spending two years as the state party chair when Trump got elected, two years in Congress during his first term, and listening to him talk over the entire time, I'm going to take the president at his word when he says Social Security and Medicare are off the table. Now, if you're going to go in on waste, fraud, and abuse and deal with some of that stuff, I think there are appropriate places in which you can do that. But

The president's been pretty clear for as long as I've known him that Social Security and Medicare are off the table, so we'll see what it ends up looking like. It's just the numbers he's thrown out there in terms of saying how much fraud and abuse is. Even the administrator of the Social Security Department, picked by Donald Trump, says that there are not that many people who are over 100 years old collecting those checks like they claim. Well, yeah, and the $800 billion they asked this House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut,

Like, if that is your number, I mean, the reality is, is you have to get into those programs in some way. Otherwise, there's no other place to do it. So those are the real rubber meets the road conversations that have to occur. But at the end of the day, I mean, that's going to come down to, you know, President Trump and Susie Wiles and saying, where are you at? And I mean, where are you trimming and where are you actually cutting? Because I don't think I just I've never heard the president say he supports cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

We're also going to see the strength of Trump's political arm, the $100 million that Elon Musk just donated towards it, the threats to primary if you don't pass, right? The bullying on X, like they're going to try to get Republicans in line to vote for this. It's going to be bloody. I mean, let's just play a game. Like what percentage chance do you think this will actually pass? The budget reconciliation piece? Mm-hmm.

85. I mean, as high as reform in the way that it's been promised. 85%, which is the highest I give anything on our side right now. I think the downstroke to not doing it and having the Senate, having the House and having the White House and effectively implementing a tax increase is just whatever the alternative to that is, that alternative is untenable for Republicans when they hold all three.

Okay. Governor Armstrong, thank you so much for your time. This was fascinating. I did see that you're trying to get rid of property tax. Is that right? We have a really, really what I think is a cool property tax proposal out here. We're blessed in that we have a legacy fund with oil and gas tax revenue in it. We have an opportunity to deliver real tax relief to our citizens, and we're pretty excited about it.

Cool. I'll have to have you on another time as that develops and we'll check it out and see how that goes. Perfect. Great.

That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Olivia Query, Christopher Sutton, and Connor Nevins. If you like this show, please subscribe, share it, send it to your friends. If you like my reporting, go to Substack and find my new newsletter, The Red Letter. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my independent journalism. You can also find me on YouTube at Tara Palmieri. That's at T-A-R-A-P-A-L-M-E.

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