12 Hours Without TikTok, Trump's Inauguration & What Comes Next
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Nightmare presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. We got to change that tagline. We're going to update that tagline. We're going to change it. Well, today it feels a little, today it feels like both a fever dream and a nightmare. I basically attended my own funeral over the weekend with the TikTok short-term blackout. And I'm going to be doing a little bit of a

We are recording this just after Donald John Trump, who was inaugurated in as the 47th president. So. And we're dropping this on Monday night as a favor to y'all. I can't believe I just dropped my first y'all. What's going on? And a favor to us because I cannot wait to talk about this. Me too. Everything we've got going on. It's a crazy week. Crazy weekend. Crazy week and crazy week ahead. And we are going to get you through this night. You know, let me just say about this TikTok thing.

funeral situation. It died for shorter time than Jesus Christ did. So I don't know what those disciples were doing for three days. It must have been unbearable. The memes that must have been going around. I can't imagine waiting. Yeah, for three days. We had it out for 12 hours.

So many people who make content online made a heartfelt apology. It felt like I did. I mean, I did my last Good News Only and I tried to keep it together and I was like half crying. And at the end, I was like, this is my last TikTok ever. Thank you, which is how I truly feel. And a lot of people cried or did whatever. And then the next day they were like, oh, I'm so embarrassed that I was so emotional about it. What you lived was real. We genuinely thought that this was the end and it was in many ways the end.

I had worked so hard, like in such machine. I was in the machine, Sammy. So in the machine.

And we're trying to talk to the White House and trying to like figure out what's going on with Trump and trying to see like Biden needs to say like three more words about the ban that would have made it not go dark on Sunday and he wouldn't do that. And it just – it was like crazy. So when you are surviving something, which this was a survival thing for all the people who make their living on here, folks were starting to think, how am I going to pay rent? You are making short-term decisions. And if your short-term decision was to cry or to say goodbye or to do what you felt like you had to –

I'm not embarrassed of how I behaved. I was living in the moment up to it. It was all real. What words would he have needed to say?

I wrote them to my contact at the White House and I was like, can we please, is anyone at the White House, can anyone please tell Biden that he needs to add these couple words? And basically the feedback was Biden said what he said and that should be enough. And I was like, OK, but it's not because his own Department of Justice, Lisa Monaco, the deputy director of Department of Justice, said he didn't say exactly. He said we will not enforce the ban, but he wasn't clear enough about the penalties. But they needed a liability shield.

The companies felt uncomfortable. Correct. The penalty could have amounted to a billion dollar fine. It was crazy. Billions of dollars. Right. Well, it's interesting because those individuals who run those companies who wanted the liability shield rather than the guarantee that they wouldn't enforce, although the statute of limitations does extend beyond this administration technically, those people were all at the inauguration today. They were, except notably missing...

The senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton, I didn't see him in there. And he – so we do this thing with the TikTok ban, right? Trump says, I'll say the language. Xochitl decides that's enough.

They turn it back on. Tom Cotton issues – he's the one who stood up and blocked the Senate bill to extend the deadline. Stands up and says that the government is not the only one who can sue you for violating national security. There are stakeholders. There are states' rights. There's all this kind of stuff. And he's like threatening to sue TikTok for continuing operations after the bill went into effect.

Isn't that wild? I can't wait to see what Trump says to him. I'm like, this is wild. I think Tom Cotton actually believes that TikTok is a national security threat. Well, he's got a book coming out, Seven Things You Better Know About China. He has like a derangement against China that I don't know where that comes from. Maybe we'll find out in the book. I surely won't be reading it, but somebody will and we'll read the review of that.

But he has some freakish derangement against China so hard that despite being shown proof that China does not own the app, he's like, no, it's Chinese. It's Chinese spyware. I mean, I think all of this is not to be litigated here because we are just not the experts. Anyway, we're back. We're back. The vibes are weird. It feels weird. People think everybody moved to meta servers. They didn't. But maybe they did. This is the thing. I live in a second-to-second truth as like –

Very involved in TikTok. So I'm not making any predictions or saying anything. I just know what I experienced trying to keep it on. And it was not a joke trying to keep it on and negotiating behind the scenes between the two presidencies. Whoever said, let's have it go out on January 19th. Fuck you so bad. It was the worst possible time to try an overlapping negotiate.

It's back on. I intend to just do what I always did, which is the news at seven, try to keep it non-bias and move on from there. You know, I want to say that the way the final stages of this TikTok ban situation played out reminds me a little bit of the way the hostage and ceasefire deal played out, where the negotiators were only willing to play ball with Donald Trump for whatever reason. And it's

He was able to use his leverage with these people to get a deal done. And the Biden administration was just going to, was not going to be able to navigate in that environment. And maybe this is a good time to discuss what we wanted to about Biden's legacy. But I feel that in the end, he came across, not just came across, he proved to be incredibly ineffective.

And I kind of chalk it all up to age and him being representative of this very defunct old guard that just was not able to meet the moment and save the average Americans from this tech oligarchy that we're, A, seeing play out and exists live on stage at the inauguration. And we're all experiencing in our lives, which speaks to what happened with this TikTok thing.

whatever it is. I think we're going to see what happens with the app. You say you don't think Meta bought it. Donald Trump tweeted that he wants the US to have 50% ownership. What does that mean? Could that be like a conglomeration of tech oligarchs co-owning it? Regardless, we don't know. So I think even speculating is kind of not worth it. But it was not just a

a stunt. It was a transfer and a consolidation of media on his behalf. So whatever happened, that's the direction it's going in. So the trust is broken. And we talked about the trust being broken on TikTok. This will be the last thing that we say about it. I totally understand that they're going to have a lot to do to rebuild trust. And so far, since it's been back on, it's like when somebody cheats on a relationship, you decide you're going to stay together, but you're always looking over your shoulder. You never feel as secure and safe again. And that's kind of the vibes right now. So we're

We're going to see. We don't know where it's going to end up in terms of the control. But speaking to Biden, I just I think that I didn't think this for most of his actual presidency, but I think he's going to go down in the bottom quartile of presidents. And it's going to be about his age and the fact that he was unable to maneuver on so many different fronts. He was unable to maneuver on Gaza because he had no leverage with Bibi.

Or him, you know, he just had no able, he was no, no ability to navigate. He could not, you know, you look at the TikTok ban, but it's so much more than that. If he is warning about this tech oligarchy, it's like, okay, well you were here before.

You were here. You had staff that was able to tell you this. And his inability to communicate because of his age, his inability to pass the torch, his inability to actually even be around other people because he was so insulated. So it's not like he could even get new ideas.

and he had like five people in his inner circle. He couldn't clearly see what was happening enough to rein it in quickly. It was in Jack Smith's final report that had Donald Trump's crimes gone to trial, he probably would have been convicted. That didn't get to happen because Biden's Justice Department, he was holding them back from that. He just thought this was all going to blow over.

He ultimately became vulnerable to his family's interests, everything going on with Hunter and other people's interests, and he was not able to look past it. And he is going to go down as the president and the person responsible for allowing whatever happens with Donald Trump's next term to be the thing. It's going to be Hoover-esque. So as somebody who was close to the White House and

I would say as close as you can be as a civilian to the president, right? Like pretty close. I think Biden in his first two years treated the presidency like a one-term presidency, like he promised us. He was rocking and rolling. He was getting the Infrastructure Act. He was doing this. He was bringing in young people. Something happened to him on 10-7 that happened to a lot of people. And I think that that started his idea of I'm going to get a second term.

This is when he started to decide that he was going to run for the second term. He wasn't going to hand the baton over. He was not able to negotiate the peace in the Middle East the way that he thought he could because he continued to rely on sort of like

old forms of like a gentleman's handshake idea of international policy as opposed to what was presented to him. And him saying he was going to run for that second term, I think is exactly the moment that I can pinpoint is when things flipped from like what his first two years were like, which I thought were very exciting, to what the last two years were like, which was marked with, you know,

in many ways. Well, it's like because he's going to be looked at as having not met the moment in such a deep way, everything that he did not so badly is going to look just irreversible

Like the infrastructure, but like the infrastructure act, his negotiations with Medicare, none of that's going to stay. All that's like done. And then also pulling out of Afghanistan, even though it was Donald Trump's deadline, that's going to be looked at totally harshly on him. All of it. It's like the inflation is going to be the, the memory, not the fact that we didn't go into a recession, technically not the soft land. Yeah.

The fact that Merrick Garland didn't prosecute Trump, this is where I'm saying I felt like Biden after the first two years felt like he would get another six. And we were real slow on a lot of the stuff that he needed to keep that first two years energy up on. And he needed to be dealing with information as it was presented presently and not relying on this sort of like gentleman's handshake way. It's always been old school, you know, whatever. Well, here's the thing. When you're president, you don't get to just

make oopsies, especially when your whole pitch is that you're especially wise because of your age and your experience. And what we needed was either somebody who could actually use their knowledge and experience to activate

the leadership of a new generation that actually reached people, but he didn't. So that is what it is. That's going to be his legacy. And as somebody who had a lot of faith in Joe Biden, I am deeply fucking disappointed. And I'm even more disappointed to hear this morning that he pardoned a number of people. He pardoned Dr. Fauci. He pardoned people from the January 6th committee. He pardoned his...

immediate family and his in-laws. And you know who he didn't pardon? He didn't pardon Alexander Vindman. He didn't pardon Cassidy Hutchinson. He didn't pardon people who stuck out their necks for democracy in a way that

It takes so much courage. I can't even fathom. We got 30,000, more than 30,000 signatures for the reality winner pardon. Reality winner is the former NSA officer who exposed Russian collusion in the 2016 election and went to, Donald Trump put her in jail for five years for straight up

telling the truth. All she did was say, here it is, here's the paperwork, put her in jail the day he got elected for five years. Now he has said that he's going to come back after her, right? Because now she served her time. She got out. We're trying to get this pardon for her to say, look, she served her time. It's a wrap. She's never encouraged young people to do stuff like that, like be a whistleblower and nothing for her either. He did pardon-

Leonard Pelletier, the indigenous activist who has been in prison for all this time as well. But I agree, Sammy. I think these this last couple of months, I'm like, Jesus Christ, Joe. And I'm like very sentimental to him. And I keep wanting to say like, oh, but the bridges and the tunnels and whatever, all those bridges and tunnels and infrastructure things. Guess who's going to be at the ribbon cutting?

Trump because they come in that second term. Those projects that were started during Biden's term, those ribbon cuttings are going to be in March and April and beyond. And he'll be right there to say, look what I did for you, even though he didn't ever do shit. He'll do it because a lot of the money went to Republican states. And it's going to be like the state of Tennessee renaming the Nashville airport with their new improvements that came under Joe Biden's Infrastructure Act, Trump International, and giving them all the credit for it. So it'll be stuff like that.

Yeah. And you know, there was something from this weekend that I think we just do have to talk about because of the confusion of it. I'm so scared. I'm so scared to talk about it. But we do have to talk about it. The ERA? People are going to be mad that we tell the truth. Yes, people are going to be mad that we tell the truth, that the ERA was not...

past published or signed. We are in no different a place right now. Well, let's explain it. So Biden released a statement on Friday that the ERA, he believes the ERA is the law of the land. But really, that doesn't actually make it the law of the land. It doesn't actually mean anything.

Basically, all it does is just state an opinion. It does not have the force of law. It is up to the National Archivist to publish changes to the Constitution. So if there was an additional amendment, it would have to be

published through them, they are not doing that, not because of any sort of particular belief, but because constitutionally, the eligibility to add that amendment has passed. So it's basically just Biden being like, I think this, it is no different than Trump being like,

Frankly, we did win this election. Okay. It's no different Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy. That's what I was watching. I declared bankruptcy. I was like, baby, it doesn't happen like that. And I'm bummed because there's a couple of gaslighting things that happened over the weekend. And I know people will be mad at us for saying it, but we're always going to tell you the truth even when they don't like it. The ERA is in no different a place today than it was yesterday. Everybody...

knows that. Granted, you can now say that there's been presidential recognition, and that's more than they had before. But until Congress passes a law that revokes the timeline to pass the ERA, then there's nothing. Also, five states that gave their ratification have since tried to take it back. So there's a lot to the ERA. Kirsten Gillibrand, our senator, gets out there in her little white suit and is like, ERA is the law of the land. I'm so proud to have championed this legislation, and now it's done. And I was like, I could not

dislike you more or find you to be more of a liar than she is with this. This was like hard for me. V, what Emily Amick, aka Emily in your phone, anyone who wants to follow, wrote on her stories is that she thinks that this is paving the way for ERA trutherism where people will make this argument in court. Sure, maybe. And then it has the force of an argument and maybe they can try to do what conservatives did to create certain presidents. Totally.

You know, that's their strategy. Like, okay, go ahead. It's worth a try. You know what I mean? I only benefit from the ERA, but let's try, but let's not lie to the people and make them think it's over and they're safer than they are. Same thing with Ro Khanna saying that the million signatures we got to stop the TikTok ban worked. Babe, I love you. I love Ro Khanna. He's a wonderful person. He's worked so hard to keep TikTok on. The million signatures we got for a democratic proposition is not what kept TikTok on. It was Donald Trump. However, he was finessed.

saying the exact statement that TikTok needed him to say, just come back on. We will understand one day why this, how this went down. Yeah. I don't like this finessing. Right. But I do think it is important to distinguish between what actually happened and speculation. Yeah. And what we observe and to just what we want to be wary of.

I just don't want people to come on. It makes me feel like 1984 where they're like, we've won the war against Eurasia. We've lost the war. It feels fake. And that was what I felt like in the Kirsten Gillibrand moment and in the Ro Khanna taking credit for the ban being over. I was like, look, guys, we can't be doing these, these like megaphone to the world things that aren't totally true. Like I get, we want to keep morale high for the troops out here, but we can't lie to them. It's just like, stop with the bullshit. It has no one figured out that,

the American people can smell it. Like, dude, we know we are so much smarter than they give us credit for. And that's, that's the tough part. You know, I don't want to be, I don't want to think I'm safe when I'm not, you know, it doesn't make me feel better to be told there's no monster under my bed when there's a fucking monster under my bed. I want you to get rid of the monster. Right. Or just at least tell me there's a monster and how I could fight the monster.

Yeah. Don't make me think I'm crazy because I know there's a monster and you're telling me that there's not. Yeah. Exactly. Although Mark Cuban says he wants to fund a TikTok competitor using the protocol that Blue Sky runs on so that it's not technically owned by anybody and can't be bought or sold. You know, would love that. Let's get it going. He says that anyone who builds him like a minimum viable product, he will entertain conversation. So, you know, I don't know how to do that shit, but maybe someone listening does.

I'd love if we had a tech platform that was designed by a lady for once. Well, with the Neptune app, there's the Neptune app that's coming out. We're going to have the CEO on the show in a couple of weeks. We've reached out to her. She's lovely. And she's building a TikTok-like app that is woman-owned. And that would be, you know, could like, there's like all these promises they're making. We'll have her on and we'll explain it. But the thing is an app technology.

technology is not what makes an app. It's the culture of the content that the people fill that app with. You can make a cup, but if you fill it with wine versus filling it with piss, people are going to know the difference. So like, we don't necessarily need you to...

Maybe it won't be filled with piss, I think is the goal. Well, we don't need a new cup. We need like better content and comprehensive data privacy protections. I'm not sure that there's a tech solution to the TikTok problem. I think it's a legislative solution and a content solution and a lack of censorship solution or like, you know, the way they sort of tip the scales for red versus left and all this. Like, I think it's more, we've got a great product. It's

The way it's run is tricky. Well, that's the goal with using the blue sky protocol is that there's certain protections inherent in that. But I do not know enough about the technicalities of this conversation. All I know is about the business of media and the ownership. And I'm watching how it politically interacts with

Let's make a pitches app. I'm watching how it intersects with the politics of what's going on and the people who are at the inauguration.

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Let's go back to something that we do know a lot about and that we are experts on, and that is Melania Trump's outfit. Girl, funeral chic. What was going on with her and Ivanka looking like they were attending a wake? Do you think it was like a subtle cry for help or was it just sort of because nobody would dress them? No, no, no, no, no. People are dressing them. Oscar de la Renta is dressing them. Oscar de la Renta dressed her? Last night, at least.

at the ball. Either way, I saw a theory on TikTok, obviously, that Melania is Donald Trump's dom and

Oh, I love that. And that's like why she like swats him away. And I honestly, now I can't unsee it. And I think the brim was so he wouldn't look her in the eye because he needs permission to look her in the eye. And that's why he wouldn't, she didn't touch him when they kissed because he needs permission to touch her. And it just all sort of makes so much sense. And now why she's like kind of playing ball a little because it would be hot to be the Dom of like...

The president. The president. Well, I thought she looked so cool. Not that that's the thing I'm into.

objectively, I think is cool. I thought it was severe and I thought it projects exactly who she is. And like, in a fact, but like, I'm not, I do not agree with her or this family or anything. I'm talking about like a hundred years from now when they review the fashion and they say, okay, she came in basically with a riding crop. Like that was interesting. Yeah. Then Usha Vance wearing a pink version of Melania's outfit from the first inauguration. And,

Nobody talked to Usha Vance the whole time. I mean, I don't feel bad for her at all.

ever. She made a choice. I don't feel bad for her. I think she looked great and I think she was going to get like fashion write-ups. She and J.D. Vance though clearly were not on the group chat when they talked about what everybody was wearing to the inauguration because they were like not I didn't think they looked like they fit in with the group. Well you know they're not billionaires so sorry. I know but like even like style wise she was so like I'm going to wear some Reagan red or I don't know. I was not into it.

Jill Biden's purple coat also has big meaning. There's a lot of meaning in all the things that they choose to wear because that's like purple is the color of like red and blue blended. Did you happen to catch what Lauren Sanchez was wearing?

No. Oh, she was wearing a white blazer with like a bustier, a lace bustier, it appeared, or like a bralette showing. I'm like, really? Wait. You have to describe her as Jeff Bezos' fiancée, or I don't know who she is. I don't know that woman's name. Jeff Bezos' fiancée was wearing that. Got it. Okay. Really? Really?

Like, honestly, the outfit would have been great for her bachelorette or for her rehearsal dinner or for her wedding after party. There are so many occasions where she could have worn that. Wasn't thinking the inauguration was one, but I don't know. Fetterman showed up in gym shorts and a hoodie, but he was sitting in the front row. That's hilarious, honestly. So gross. Hillary Clinton.

I can't believe she went. I wish she didn't go. I was sort of glad that Michelle didn't go and AOC didn't go. Karen Pence also didn't go. I wouldn't go if somebody tried to kill my husband. Look, maybe she really is mother.

I just see they're all I have told you this many times. The Republicans have a humiliation kink. This is their thing. It's why they're so weird about sex and they want to regulate sex so much because they're so uncomfortable with it because their sex is painful or forced or in some way like not full of love and joy and excitement. It's not like not for pleasure. I do want to say regarding the presence of the oligarchs, Steve Bannon actually called out yesterday that the tech oligarchs have bowed to Trump.

He said that Trump broke the oligarchs and they surrendered, but he calls out Mark Zuckerberg. He doesn't think that Zuckerberg's for real. He thinks Zuckerberg could turn at any moment because he came around too late.

doesn't hack it, that he's trying to be a bro. Listen, I love Steve Bannon's fanfic for Trump, okay? But what I experienced over the last week, I think that there are times when flattery gets you everywhere with Trump, certainly as we saw in the case of TikTok in some ways, and with certain other people. Like I think Morning Joe going down there and whatever, and like, as they call it, kissing the ring. I think with Zuckerberg and Bezos and whatnot, I think

that they know they can get something from him in some ways. Like, I'm not sure that Donald Trump is such power so much as, you know, if you tell him he's pretty, he'll put out like there's not, that's the way I feel that he, he goes in and they're like, here's a little bit of money and you're beautiful and I love you. And then they get whatever they want. It's not like he's really in control of the strategy somehow here. I think it's like very, the emperor has no clothes with Trump in a lot of ways. Um,

And I think a lot of the people that surround him who are evil geniuses in some way are the ones who are sort of running the show. Like I think the Heritage Foundation didn't necessarily bend the knee to Trump so much as they use him and they know how to manipulate him to get what they want when it comes to like Christian nationalism agenda. I don't think Trump gives a shit about having Bibles in schools, but he will care about it if you put his name on it and you give him a little money. I think you're absolutely right about the transactional nature of him. But I also think on the other side of that,

If you rebuff him, he will make you an enemy. Oh, for sure. For sure. So it's kind of this game. Which is why Biden issued pardons to his family, like during the inauguration at 1145. You know who didn't get a pardon?

Who? Nancy Pelosi, who is on his hit list of people that he thinks did him wrong. Biden did not give Nancy Pelosi a pardon. I don't believe in preemptive pardons. I think that this, I mean, I, of course, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but I think it sets a weird precedent and it made me feel icky. All of these, like, I don't like the idea that you could pardon somebody for something that they, pardons are usually for after you've committed a crime and are guilty, not for like before. Like, I think it's a weird way to set it up. It's

It's supposed to involve almost an inherent admission of guilt. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think it's very odd that he pardoned his immediate family at the 11th hour. I think it's strange. Like, what did they do? What do they have to do with anything? And then you don't pardon people, like you said, like Nancy Pelosi or Cassidy. Or a reality winner. Exactly. It's like, this is why I believe he will go down as a bad president. I know. Yeah.

It hurts me. I don't know. I cry about the government a lot, which is really useless. Is it? I mean, he just is so mush mouthed in the last week of his presidency, especially like this last month has been tough for him being able to like get the words out that need to be said to do something powerful, lock up the legacy in any way. Like every day it became harder and harder and harder.

to remember any of the good stuff because he did so many weird things in this last month. And I think these pardons to the family will be something that Trump will talk about all the time. We will never beat the Biden crime family accusations, right? So I don't know. Right. It's like, what did they even do that? I've never even heard of some of these people.

So I don't know. You know who else is crying about the government? Vivek Ramaswamy, who has already been kicked out of Doge. He's getting out of Doge. Yeah, no DEI hires. No DEI hires, Vivek. And so the first person to go, of course, was the naturalized citizen, Vivek Ramaswamy. Oh, totally. A source close to Trump told CBS News that Vivek has worn out his welcome and he had left amidst friction with the staff. You know,

You know, I won't lie. Yeah, he's annoying. He's a twit. You can't have a government efficiency office with two co-heads that is inherently inefficient. So look, I guess they're doing their job in one part.

They've at least cut half of their leadership. I'm going to tell you. And they cut him. He is annoying. He is. He's like Ted Cruzian. Sort of his personality reminds me of like a Ted Cruz type person. And they're like, get out of here. We can't tell racist jokes in front of you. It's uncomfortable. And that's why I think they're not including J.D. Vance or Usha in anything. I think that I think this is like the definition of gross boys club happening up there. And that's upsetting. Yeah.

It's funny you called him Ted Cruzian because I always think about his defining characteristic being that no one in his actual life who knows him likes him and how his college roommates would come for him. And...

Do you know who Pablo Torre is? He said that he went to college with B. Rec. Brahmaswamy, and there's a clip of him talking about it and how he was like just that guy who is Ted Krusean. Well, my wife is from the great state of Ohio and...

Some of my family members have gone to the Ohio State University. We love Ohio. Ohio is a great state full of wonderful people on the whole who have terrible government right now. But it's a good – they are good people. And I said to her this morning, I was like, hey, you got to ask Aunt Becky and them what they think about Vivek Ramaswamy running to maybe be governor of Ohio. And the feedback from my wife and her very beautiful – my wife is a sweetheart, family was –

We're not voting for the guy who said we eat cats and dogs. And these are white folks from Ohio, okay? They took it very offensively the way that Ohio was put in a bad light. They always feel sort of left out because they're one of the, like, quote, flyover states. They fight to, like, you know, project that they're not these, like, hokey, terrible people. And they're like, there's no way he will ever make it here with the things he said and the way he treated us. Also, they're very disappointed in J.D. Vance and what happened. And typically when your senator becomes –

The vice president, you're very proud of that, but J.D. Vance did Ohio dirty too. So they don't like this idea of being sort of like having these outsiders like thrust upon them. That's not the great state of Ohio. So good luck to Vivek in Ohio from what I hear.

the Amish and my wife's family will not be voting for you. Wonderful. I do think in terms of J.D. Vance, when you look at his ideology coming up with that hillbilly elegy, that real populist thing, and then kind of switching to this technocratic, faux spiritual thing. And you look at his life and it just, the puzzle pieces don't fit.

And you can see like almost the internal ideological conflict that this person's going through kind of their entire life. And he's only 40. He's not only that old. So it's and he's been in politics for quite a while. So it's not that surprising that he's someone who doesn't know what his maybe North Star is. And I think that we're going to see what that looks like. Did you ever watch the movie Pinocchio? Yeah. Yeah.

When I think of what's going on in sort of Trump 2.0, what I picture is that scene from Pinocchio when Pinocchio and the little boy he's friends with get invited to the carnival and then they all turn into like donkeys by the end and they get sold off to like donkey farm slavery. I feel like Donald Trump has like P.T. Barnum style invited all of these lost boys, whether it's J.D. Vance or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.

People who don't have a foundational sense of self or values, who have felt like misfits or nerds the whole time and told them, hey, come, come to the carnival. Let's go. You're going to be the cool guys. We're going to have a great time. And then slowly they will turn into asses and be shipped off to work farms.

It's a great metaphor. Now, maybe it's the MAGA kids, the MAGA men that are going to go that'll be shipped off, you know, to work farms. But that is my picture that I have in my mind is when Pinocchio turns into a donkey. I'll have to rewatch that. It

It is a metaphor. It was a pivotal moment for me as a child. And I think it has like helped me have a good North star towards not joining the circus generally. Yeah, I think that's actually would be quite a move to join the circus, but people do it. So.

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But speaking of joining the circus, let's talk about Donald Trump's inauguration day. It was moved inside the Capitol Rotunda. I have a confession before you get started. What?

I did not watch it. I watched about one minute of it while I was in the Dick's Sporting Goods buying new fleece comfy sweatpants because I'm not leaving my house and getting a Burger King sandwich because I was going to have one thing my way today. And I said, you know what would be fun? Yeah, Sammy's going to tell me about it and I will react the way I think the audience would react.

Okay. I think that's a good idea. I didn't really want to have to go that in depth, but now I guess I have to. Well, don't. No, just give me the highlights. I feel like a lot of people didn't want to watch. I mean, I'm always watching for like the interactions and I'm just kind of- You're so brave. No, it was terrible. No, it's fine. It was definitely a different vibe and energy moving it indoors. Yeah.

It didn't end up being that cold, but that significantly reduced the number of people there. And you kind of had this situation visually where you had all the billionaires sitting in front of the cabinet secretaries and the prospective cabinet secretaries and kind of looking down visually on the lawmakers and the actual like attendees of the inauguration. Um,

There were no tickets for plus ones for lawmakers, but there were for the billionaires, as we know. Jeff Bezos' wife and her exposed cleavage. Yes, we will ticket that. We're going to ticket that. Would have been amazing on a bachelorette, just going to say that. The speech was almost like State of the Union-y in terms of he was listing out everything he's going to do, and I can kind of give you a preview of that. It's mostly like...

national state of emergency at the border, all the border shits coming back. I don't want to go into all the details because it's just fucking boring. And we're talking about the emotions of it. Well, yeah, let's talk about the emotions because while I did not watch the inauguration, I did read about it later. So I'm caught up on the things he said. I just could not watch him today. I only have so much nerves left. Understandable. So

So he, you know, there's a lot about, you know, he's bringing back a merit-based world. We're getting rid of DEI and all these poisonous ideas, says the man who was born with millions of dollars. I know. He's, you know, we're going back to all the border policies. He wants to set up an external revenue service to collect tariffs. He's going to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. There was quite a bit on that. Quite a bit.

quite a bit on the Panama Canal, which he is determined to take. I promise you he will have his name on a body of water or a landmass by 2027. I would actually put money on that. No doubt. Well, after he made that Panama Canal thing... So I'm one of the creators for NATO. I do stuff with NATO. And NATO sent out a whole thing being like, we will beef up international security. And it seems like against the United States. I don't know how... That's not what they said, but they...

But they're sort of like, we will beef up national security to ensure that our NATO nations are protected and that the Americas essentially don't act up and act crazy. I don't know what's going to happen with that, but that was alarming. Yeah, I mean, that is definitely concerning. Maybe they mean against Russia because Europe no longer has the innate protection of the United States at the same level that maybe they were accustomed to.

Well, I think NATO is also thinking, you know, he mentioned Panama Canal, but Denmark is a stalwart NATO ally. And so maybe they're trying to put a little thing out there like, hey, hey. Yeah, I mean, it was definitely an America first speech. He started by saying this is the golden age of America. You know, he did all his greatest hits. Like there was nothing surprising in the policy piece there.

one little section I thought was worth noting was him talking about how he was saved by God. He goes into quite a bit of detail on the amount of blood in his ear in the shooting. And he said he was saved by God to make America great. It's giving divine right of kings. It's giving laitassez moi. Oh, my God. Are you surprised? Is he taking...

He did. Here's why I'm surprised. Somebody had to write that partially for him. And that is what scares me about the people who surround him, because that is some poetic Christian nationalist stuff that I'm sure they like put in front of him to be like, you were saved by the blood of Christ. Like that's. You don't think he believes that about himself? Well, he believes it, but somebody else had to tell him that, I'm sure. I'm sure he believes it. I think like a five-year-old who is quite egocentric could come up with that.

If you believe, if you like understand. So we're washed in the blood of Trump. Okay. Yeah, that's generally the vibe. At least the Gulf of America will be. Oh my God. I know. Okay. So what else happened? Then after the inauguration, the technical speech, he left the rotunda and he went and gave a speech to Congress.

the billionaires, like his people, not to the lawmakers. And he's telling them, he's like, you guys are so good looking. You guys are good looking, way more powerful, way more important than all the people in there. This is off the record. Don't tell anybody I said that. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. Yeah. I mean, it was televised. Yeah. He knows what he's doing. And that was his ramble speech about how

You know, I'm going to end political persecutions because I know something about political persecutions. And this was his like more off the cuff situation. His grievance list. I've been attacked. Yeah. So, look, there's nothing. There was nothing new. Did he say anything about the January Sixers? Didn't he say you're going to get a lot of action on the January Sixers? I might have missed it.

And then after he had a signing ceremony, he signed 10 executive orders that were mostly ceremonial. But he is reportedly planning a slew of executive orders. I don't want to get ahead of it. But nothing that wasn't previewed in his inauguration speech and in his speech.

epilogue ramble. But I think we know what to expect mostly because he's told us this time. He's going to start hard with the immigration stuff. Can I tell you what scared me about what I read? Because of course I didn't watch, but I know he said something about, you know, he's going to be doing raids allegedly in Chicago this week. They're going to be locking up the border and

He has James McHenry, a lawyer specializing in immigration enforcement, heading up the Department of Justice as acting attorney general until Pam Bondi can come in, which to me says they are going to start strong. And that's what the shock and awe will be when it comes to immigration and harassing anybody who doesn't, quote, look American to him.

Yeah, they said they're starting strong. They've been saying it. There's no surprises here. Well, and having this particular acting DOJ, I think, reinforces that because it's clear. Why pick this guy who has a specialty in immigration enforcement unless you were planning to rip through some big stuff in the next month? Oh, he is. Also, one of the biggest things that I think will make a lot of headlines when it happens is that he plans to issue an executive order claiming to end birthright citizenship, which might

amount to being about as constitutional as Biden's ERA comment, but it doesn't necessarily mean that he's not going to take action based on that. And at the same time, that would potentially affect his

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as Vivek Ramaswamy, although he's already been kicked to the curb. So I often wonder what these things because we know the Department of Justice will let him do it because it's an immigration hardliner who probably subscribes to the idea of like ending birthright citizenship and whatever white nationalist dream he has.

But I'm like, OK, does the Supreme Court have something that they can overturn that would end birthright citizenship? And no, because birthright citizenship, it's in the Constitution. But also there is this United States versus Joaquin Arc, which –

since 1898. It's the Supreme Court decision that upholds that a child born in the United States is a permanent domicile and residence of the United States. You know, Trump's bringing back laws from the 1700s. Would they try to overturn the Supreme Court decision? And would that somehow

My feeling is less about the ending of birthright citizenship specifically, what will happen with it constitutionally, because whatever happens there will take quite a bit. The point is that in people's daily lives, when they're getting raided at their workplace, it's not just about the birthright citizenship.

It doesn't matter if you are a citizen or not. The point is he's calling that into question. So the way that it will actually impact people in the present, it's going to take years to take a case to prove that they do have birthright citizenship and all of this. It's about the imminent threat of people to people who are undocumented or may have loved ones who are undocumented or who may not look like a white American. Right.

That's what I think this is really about in effect. We have, you know, I've talked about this before, members of my family who are Guatemalan and

One of the things that we've talked about is just printing out that paperwork. If you have kids, print out all of their paperwork. Make sure that the front office has a copy of their passport, their birth certificate, whatever the case may be, has a copy of the parents' passports. Just make a little package of things that prove your child's citizenship. Make sure that their teacher has one, the front desk has one, and they have one in their backpack. And that's what we've been doing because –

Trump has said, you know, in the past, going into hospitals or schools, things like that, what religious institutions was considered a sensitive space. And so they didn't do that. But they're not necessarily against that now. And remember, cruelty is the point. So we want to, you know, like we said, oh, if the policeman comes, just make sure you show me your special papers and like, you know, trying to make it fun. And this that's scary, Sammy. That's very I know it feels very like, you know. Yeah, I know. I know. We don't have to say the word.

Let's end this on a lighter-ish note. I do have a lighter note when it comes to enforcement and scary stuff. So nominees confirmed for the cabinet are few right now. So we were getting some of these acting attorney generals. And for the military, we're getting this guy, Robert Salises, who will serve as the acting defense secretary until Pete Hegseth is confirmed, if he is ever confirmed.

And this guy is dope. OK, I want to just tell you right now he's worked through four different presidencies. He's a former Marine. He is a solid person. He is a constitutional person. He has been the head of the administrative wing of the Pentagon. So he knows the paperwork. He understands chain of command. And when he was a Marine and as part of his duties through as part of like the Joint Chiefs of Staff staff.

He has done tons of negotiating, lots of very sensitive issues. Honestly, if this guy were to stay the secretary of defense, I'd be really proud to have him serve the military. Certainly, he's very nonpartisan. So hopefully, maybe Pete doesn't get in and this becomes –

becomes true, you know, that's a good news. To be honest, I love to hear that. That would be some great news. Bob would be some great news for this role. So I'm just saying like, but there are some thoughts. Well, what did I tell you a couple of weeks ago? I said, what I think will happen is somebody will rise up from the military ranks and say, I can do it. Even if they don't totally support Trump, they'll be able to play the game enough to keep the military running smoothly and not have it be, you know, Pete Headseth's little toy. So we'll see what happens.

But that's a little bit of good news. Right. We have to hear if Hegseth lasts because I don't know if people realize what this man is going to be in charge of. I don't see him enjoying it very much. He ain't going to like it. And we already – a lot of the DOD Pentagon stuff is like we're just going to try to flatter him. We're just going to try to be like, yes, sir. We love you so much, sir. Let's fly you around and take you to a couple parades and then hopefully the Joint Chiefs of Staff can actually run the military. But –

If this Robert guy stayed in, I think America would be pretty proud of that. And so hopefully Pete doesn't get in and this guy has a chance to get going. And maybe Trump is like, you know what? You're good enough. You can stay. We'll see. Trump's going to be busy with a lot of things right now because he also just launched a meme coin.

I don't know anything about crypto, but I think it's worth noting that in addition to becoming the actual fucking president of the United States, he is also a crypto billionaire apparently at the moment, launching both Money Sign Trump and Money Sign Melania with the same crypto bros that did the Money Sign Hawk to a Girl's cryptocurrency. So we are a deeply unserious nation. We are not serious people.

No. And didn't she just get in a ton of trouble for like rug pulling all the investors? It was like so many people invested in Hak Tua and then she just sort of pulled all the money out of it. It's the same people doing the Trump and Melania coin. Yes, but I don't know if he's going to do that extensive of a rug pull because why wouldn't he rather make his own currency to go with his body of water and his landmass and his currency?

I was reading about it. And the coin appreciates over the next three years, which would mean that he'll probably keep this grift going for at least three years. And then maybe in the last year of his presidency –

Who knows? I can't think past tonight. Again, we're wading into waters of which we know not. All I know today is that the Trump Melania coins are made by the same person who made the Hak'tu coins. So do with that what you want. It is. I mean, they're the main crypto people from what I understand. Are they? They've been sued like a whole bunch. I was looking at their thing. They've been sued like a million times. Everyone in crypto gets sued. Yeah.

Okay, let's end this on like a lighter note, but not necessarily a more positive note. But I do think we would be remiss if we didn't discuss this because it is, it's being whispered all over the internet to the point where I got a notification about this rumor today. I have also been asked to fact check this rumor. So I think we have to at least lay it upon the table for discussion. People are asking. A lot of people have been asking if the Obamas are potentially separated.

or want to be separated or separating or something is troubling in paradise. And here's why. First, she didn't go to Jimmy Carter's funeral. Fine. I assume she doesn't fuck with this stuff.

Then she didn't go to the inauguration, also understandable. But something in the air just felt like they're off. But then it was her birthday and he posted a picture of them in a wine cellar and people started dissecting the body language and everything.

Her purse is on the table and he doesn't look like he's staying and the wine glasses are empty and why is... No food. No food. Totally. Right. It just seemed like weird. And they each wrote, love you, which everyone knows means... When you say love you. Instead of I love you. Especially when people are suspecting something. He showed up to a dinner in Georgetown yesterday solo. Granted, he's in town solo to do the inauguration stuff, but...

I thought they were very cozy at the DNC. And you and I talked about maybe that was like, you know, nostalgia. Maybe that it was like, oh, remember when this used to be us, Brooke? The hope was high. Maybe they thought they were doing a favor for the country. Maybe. I can't believe they posted that picture of her on her birthday, honestly, because she was like lights, camera, action, no makeup. No.

Not that she has to wear makeup, but it wasn't the most flattering picture of her or him. It felt very staged. It was extremely unusual given, you know, all of these rumors or whatever. I hate doing this, but like we got asked so many times that we were like, okay, we must lay it upon the table for discussion.

You know, their kids are older now. Are they at different points in their life? Will they always love each other? But maybe they're just sort of like doing different things. I think Michelle has had such a glow up since leaving public office. And she's so powerful and interesting and sort of like not at the mercy of the public and the politics and all the nasty things they said to her. And that's who he is. That's his whole thing. So, yeah.

you know, not that he's rude to her. I think he loves his wife. I mean, he is in the politics world where every time she does something for him, she has to face all that hate and grossness. Oh, I don't question that they love each other as a, you know, lifelong partner kind of way. But I agree with you. She seems to have spiritually up level. Yeah, she looks wonderful. Yeah, that and

She's like in her power in a way that feels like beyond what it used to be. And I don't know. I think maybe it's the fact that she didn't go to Jimmy Carter's funeral. I don't think – I think they really wanted to hide it.

She would just go. Oh, she'd be showing up. But there's something I think maybe people caught a whiff of energy. Like sometimes you just like catch it. You're just like, those people, something. And I think maybe that kind of collectively was the consent. Like that's how people felt about it. Just all at once because maybe it's in the air.

If there's something in the air, I mean, there's also couples who later in life, like they just have different hobbies. They live sort of, they love each other. They live sort of side by side. It's not the same as when they were raising their kids. Like I think in my parents, right? My dad goes golfing every day. He goes on his golf getaways without my mom. The other wives are like, what's going on with Paula Marine? How come Marine never comes? Because Marine doesn't like you bitches. That's why she doesn't want to sit around and drink all day and come

complain about her husband. That's why she doesn't come. Maureen's a good woman. She stands by you, but I'm not getting that vibe from the Obamas. I'm not getting the, we just have different interests vibe. You know, she even wrote in her book that they go, you know, that you have peaks and valleys. And I think this could be one. I don't necessarily know if they'll formally separate, but like, why does it even necessarily matter if they can just kind of live within the confines of this working and, you know, good for them.

I wish them the best in this next phase. I do too. I did not like the way he was sort of like talking and chatting up Trump. Trump was especially horrible to Michelle Obama. And if I saw my partner sort of kiki-ing at an event with my greatest enemy, I'd be like, why did you do that? Why did you have to talk to him at all? George Bush didn't talk to him. Why did you have to talk to him? I almost felt like that was the thing that made me think like there's a distance between

Because she would have been like, fuck that. Maybe she doesn't feel he protected her enough from it. Like we said, she is in her power. She is in her gorgeous. She is like a whole person that...

with boundaries. And I really admire her and I love reading her books and following her. And if in fact there is a split, I want to be clear, I'm choosing Michelle. I don't think there's going to, I don't know if I see like a formal split because why would they want to put themselves through that and what's the need? But the energy, everyone, let us know what you think about the energy. Yes. And we do this because you know you love the political tea. So we'll lay it upon the table as long as we recognize that we don't know

don't know these people. We don't know what's going on. But other people are discussing it. And this is like the stuff of American fever dream. It is undeniable right now. It's so hard. This is the stuff of AFD, not the American fever dream. It's American fever dream. The

My promise to you as Under the Dust News is every night at 7, I will simply tell you what happened. I'm going to speak for Sammy and say her promise to you with morning announcements is if you cannot catch the news in the night, you catch up with Sammy in the morning. You listen to us nice and easy, gentle. We give you the news of the day, period. Then you come over here. We talk a little shit. We break it down a little bit more. We have a little fun, but we keep you safe, okay? Not every single day is going to be about Trump and all the craziness and all this. We're just going to try to keep it real.

And if you're just looking for news, you can find us, you know, in the night or in the morning. Wake up. Go to sleep with us. Live your fever dream. Until next time, I'm Vitus Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream. Good night. American Fever Dream is produced and edited by Samantha Gatzik. Social media by Candice Monega and Bridget Schwartz.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Betches News and follow me, Sammy Sage at Sammy and V at Under the Desk News. And of course, send us your emails to AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com.