Preparing For Uncertain Times & Stephen Miller Flipping Tables
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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 Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. And today, we're going to open up Trump's cabinet.

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that you will not do harm to yourself or fall into despair. I'm telling you this to prepare you, not to scare you. And I want you to know that the people who love you today will love you tomorrow. And there are more people out here who are fighting for your right to exist.

But we just have to be honest about where we are right now. And you're not going to like it. And it's going to be uncomfortable and it's going to be ugly. We're going to have a big cry about it. But we're going to be we're going to be we're going to take it head on. We're going to take it head on and we're going to be safe. So here are some of the things that we know the Trump administration is planning to do. Now, when it comes to his plans, the two things that he is going to focus on first are mass deportations and trans people.

And that is because that gets him a lot of claps from his constituents. And he ran a campaign. They will say that Kamala Harris ran on social issues. No, she didn't. She never mentioned really gay or trans people at all the whole time. That was his entire thing. She never mentioned a single element of identity politics ever.

the whole time that she was the candidate. Theirs was all about immigrants, they're eating the cats and dogs. And trans people are ruining your life. And trans people are ruining your life in sports and all this kind of stuff, right? Yeah, that is like, they have yard signs about saving girls' sports. Again, I want to find...

one example of a trans woman who has injured or who was actually trying to play on a high school sports team that has caused an issue. I'm like genuinely looking for one example. Somebody please send me one. Well, we ran the numbers and trans people make up less than half a percent of the total American population. So we're talking about a very small amount of people in the first place. Does that mean trans people who have transitioned, like who have undergone treatment or does that mean people who are in their minds? No, identify.

Okay. Just identify as trans in some form, not have undergone treatment, just identify as trans. So fewer than that even have undergone transition or hormone therapy or anything. Okay. So half a percent of all Americans in the whole world, half a percent identify as trans.

Of that, the majority are adults, right? Because that's how we poll people. So we now know adults. Of that, the amount of people who would be considered any kind of like apex athlete is even smaller than that. So when we ran all the numbers all the way through, the amount of people who identify as trans who would even potentially participate in sports at the high school or college level is 100 people.

Okay. And do they actually? 100 people of what? 334 million people. And he ran his entire campaign making you think that this was like the greatest threat to America. And also those 100 people don't even necessarily want to play the sports. That's correct. People who could in theory want to play the sports. Or play on like a college fun team, right? Yeah. So we're talking about when it came down to like who could potentially compete at the Olympic level.

One. I mean, they're still on Imani Khalif. So who's not even trans. Right. So and also like not an American like but they made it seem like it was the biggest deal in the world. And so those are the facts on that. So this is what we're talking about when it comes to the smallest amount of people.

Now, the two ways that we know straight off the Trump administration is seeking to really set trans rights back astronomically is an attack on trans people in prison because that is a very... They're already in prison. They're already in prison. And to a lot of people, prisoners are disposable. They don't think that they deserve rights. They committed crimes. Now, their crime could be things like petty theft. It could be just crimes of survival, we'll call them, right? Sex work, crimes of survival. Les Mis crimes. Right.

And so they're in prison. And the way that the world worked was that it is cruel and unusual punishment to not give people the medicines they're prescribed. So that's why trans prisoners and inmates were getting their HRT or were getting their whatever because that is an amendment, no cruel and unusual punishment. And they were getting this under the Trump administration. They've been getting it for a long, long time. There's also like so few examples of this.

Because it's cruel and it's not trans-specific. If you are taking medicine and you are incarcerated, it is cruel and unusual to not give you the medicine you need. You can't let people die of cancer just because they're in prison. You can't let people not get their HRT just because they're in prison. So those were constitutional laws. What does HRT stand for? Yeah, so for people transitioning to be women, this is their estrogen. Also women, but the problem is it's also lots of cis women take HRT.

Because menopause, all different kind of things. Yeah, I think generally there's a lot of just misunderstanding about the widespread use of various therapies that are not used for the- Hormone replacement. Like the vicious purpose that people are worried that they're being used for. So one thing we know that they're going to do straight off is say that there is no such thing as trans. So if you are a, whatever you are assigned-

At birth will be where you are incarcerated, which is, of course, incredibly dangerous, especially for trans women, as many of them have transitioned at some level. Maybe they've had breast augmentation. Maybe they've had whatever. Now you're putting them into a men's prison where they will be certainly unsafe. That's really scary. So that's very unsafe. Now, that was against the law. But they're saying now, you know. It will be. It will be the law. So that's very dangerous. That is one thing we know is going to happen. OK.

Okay. The next thing we know that he is going after is the idea that trans people have rights under the 14th Amendment, which is the right to privacy. He is now going to say that, no, in fact, you do not have the right to privacy as a trans person. They don't believe in privacy in general. If they are able to say that trans people do not have the right to privacy under the 14th Amendment and they get the Supreme Court to affirm this, that is very difficult for trans people because then you will be able to be discriminated against for employment.

for housing, for medical care, for any number of things if you are not afforded 14th Amendment rights. So we are not there yet, but this is something that they are preparing for. And we know straight off he is going to potentially remove the idea. A lot of states and federal governments allowed you to get an X marker on your government documents or to transition on your government documents. We know that potentially if you've already done that, it might stick.

But if you have not done that, it probably will not be afforded to you. Certainly under the Trump administration, it's not going to allow anybody new to change their gender markers or names. But also if you have that, you are kind of a target. You're kind of a target. So again, we are giving you this information to prepare you, not to scare you. But these are the things that they're openly saying are going to happen. If we know them, we can start to prepare for them. So I was talking to some trans elders and they were saying we had –

All these wishes and dreams that kids and young people wouldn't go through the things that we went through. And young people have been afforded the right to transition very publicly and with a lot of support, either from their family or from the community. And the way that we need to support you now is to ask you to be realistic about what you pass as and protect yourself with that. If you are a person who looks like me, right, I more likely pass as a woman than a man. And I also identify as a woman. So...

That's where we're going to go. We're going to go back to the she, her pronouns, girl. And I am not saying this as a way to force you to assimilate or do anything. This is just what the community is saying. I'll give you an example where it's not about assimilation. It's about protection. Jews, Jewish people who are religious and will always wear a yarmulke or kippah, they won't wear them, let's say, if they're in Paris or

Like they know, like there are certain places. They don't want to be a target. Right. It's like. It doesn't change who you are. It just changes. Your safety. You're keeping yourself safe. And it's horrible and tragic that this is the situation. Like this is so not okay. But it is what's happening. And we've been through this before. Being.

Being visibly and outwardly and proudly trans was something that we sort of gained the ability to do really in like 2013, 2014. Okay. Yeah. So we've, a lot of us have lived a long life before where we were ourselves at home or in our public spaces. But when it came to going to work or doing different things, there just were rules that we had to follow to keep ourselves safe. And unfortunately it does look like that's what this might come up against.

Now, I've had a lot of parents say to me, I don't want to kill my child's spirit. They've been – and maybe they're 15, 16, 17, 18. I mean, they're pretty close. And I don't want to kill my child's spirit and tell them that they have to, you know, detransition or any of these other things. Well, how can you? There's a way around – okay. There's a way around this, and it's the way that we used to deal with it, right? The Republicans are very comfortable with tomboys. I don't know why, but they remember it very fondly.

They're like, back in my day, you weren't trans. You were just a tomboy. You were a little toughy, right? Okay, so that kind of maybe comes back. And when it comes to your children who maybe were born male but keep long hair, that can be a religious accommodation. Put your child's hair in a protective style. Do not put your boy hair in a ponytail that some asshole little kid can cut off and traumatize them.

Put their hair in a protective style, whether that's a braid or whether that's, you know, whatever the case may be. Or what they want to wear. When they come home, they need foundational safety. That's what we need to be providing them as the adults who love them in their lives. When you come home, you can be your full, whole self, and we will create spaces for you to express yourself. We love you. We see you. When we go to these other places, we have to sort of deal with what's going to protect you and what's going to keep you safe, what's going to keep you alive.

And that is unfortunately where we are. The attack on – we know in schools the don't say gay rule will probably now extend to don't say trans. We're not allowed to teach about gender differences and whatnot. And we can fight this as much as we want. We have to do that in person.

A lot of folks are used to being organized online. They are used to creating safe spaces in their discords. They have these really robust connections online that will become less and less safe, right? The tech bros are on the Trump side of things. And as far as like online monitoring and creating lists and stuff,

We just have to be protective of that. In person is useful to organize what can be done online that is not risky. And we can share things like, how do you do homemade HRT, right? How do you see yourself in person when you're not going to be seeing them on... Backtouching HRT? Yes. Is that what we're doing now? That's what I'm saying. But there will be ways for us to protect... Moonshine HRT? Yes. There will be ways for us to protect and preserve our culture and our communities.

But we cannot be so silly as to assume that we can go about the world the way that we have been. And it's not because we don't deserve to or we're less than. It is about keeping people safe. It's tragic that this is now the world that people are going to have to go into. What I don't understand is, okay, so if the 14th Amendment thing happens, but what about just like –

walking around in their days, like in February, you know, before there's legal moves on this or there's laws in place and it's just sort of like average marginalization. I think you have to be really realistic about the fact that a second Trump presidency has emboldened racists, homophobes, transphobes, all of that.

I was talking about the Bills game and there's people with MAGA jerseys. This is a personality and something that has made people feel very emboldened to be the worst version of themselves. My gramps used to say, I don't need you to be first. I don't need you to be last. Run the middle of the pack. C's are good for me, baby. C's are good for me. That's an attitude that we need more here. Run middle of the pack.

And when I bring up my grandparents' advice, people always laugh and they're like, that's so cute. My grandparents survived World War II. My family is Albanian, okay? We came from a very difficult circumstance, Romani assimilation, all of this kind of stuff. So these are things that they didn't say because they didn't love me or they didn't appreciate or know me. They loved and appreciated me and wanted me to stay alive. And they had to do certain things to be alive so that I could be here in this space. And that's all we're saying. I'm not saying go back in the closet or whatever. I'm just saying you

You do have to be realistic about who's in power right now and what we do to protect ourselves. Yeah, I think it's more like we have been accustomed to a world with freedoms that we and with freedoms and openness that we maybe took for granted. We want to get back to it. We want to get we were trying to get back to it. That is the goal ultimately.

But that does not mean – I think we do have to kind of understand what a privilege it was and is to be able to express ourselves how openly we want without fear for our safety. And what we're looking at now is like it's not about not being proud. It's not about discriminating against – us wanting to discriminate. It's about –

protection. And it's horrible. And it's horrible that we are now in a place where survival is the priority and not pride. But it just is. The last thing that we are advocating for people to do is get a passport. I'm not saying, first of all, I'm not leaving this country. My family fought too hard for me here. You're not advocating for that? We are advocating for passports. Oh, yeah. I am too. I have one. Every single person does not need to start making a plan to move to Canada. First of all, Canada said they're not going to allow that.

It's also not better. It's not better. Okay. And so, but have a passport, have a plan, have your rainy day fund if you can, and recognize that like the way that we love our children and we let them be their self might be that they always have foundational safety at home. And we are just being realistic about what that looks like in person. Yes.

We're out here. We're going to be out here. We're going to survive it. These are the hard truths of where we're at. We're here for you. Just protect yourself and the people you love and know that like we're not giving up the fight. The way we fight has changed. And we are going to be here. We're here for you. To talk to you. Yep. And we love you. We love you. So when we come back from a break, we are going to open the cabinet of crazies and talk about one of the scariest of them all, Stephen Miller. Whoa.

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All right. It is time now for Cabinet of Crazies. And why is it a cabinet? Because we can't spend a lot of time with them. We're just going to open the cabinet. We're going to look at this oddity and we're going to put that shit back on the show. You know that book slash movie like The Indian in the Cupboard? Yeah. That's what this is. Yeah. You know what we're going to do? We're going to do The Cabinet Secretary in the Cupboard. Here we go. Okay.

So we want to give you a little background about the people who are going to be key in Donald Trump's cabinet. A couple of weeks ago, I was like, oh, Susie Wiles is there. Everything's going to be fine. It's not fine. I was wrong. Susie Wiles is wonderful at making the trains run on time. The trains to. She's basically just seems like she's keeping his family away. Yeah, I think she's look like Susie Wiles just because she's actually like competent and worked for institutionalists.

She's not going to fix this cabinet, though. She doesn't want to fix it. She's happy with what's happening. She doesn't care what they do. I thought, is Ivanka coming back? And then I saw a TikTok of Trump taking a family picture where he had Elon and his son join the family picture and not Ivanka and her children. If I were Ivanka, I would have nothing to do with it. No, I don't think she will. I don't think Jared will let her.

Look, Jared's got his own shit. No. And two billion dollars from the Saudis. They're just smart enough to be quiet. Yeah. They're the smartest people there. They will not be in the cabinet, but Stephen Miller is. Okay. So Stephen Miller, people talk about him. I feel like they know about him and they have a general sense of him. They dislike him. But I don't know if people really know about this man.

Do you know? Okay. Number one ghoul. He's 39 years old. Nuh-uh. Yes, he is. No, he's not. Yeah, he is. He's 39? Mm-hmm. I thought he was like- It's like J.D. Vance, who just turned 40. Oh my God. How are you so young and so awful already? Okay. Everything about Batsay is not even comprehensive. I'm just putting the most salient pieces in here. Okay. So in the first term, that's when most people know him, he was credited with shaping the immigration policies. Yeah.

the zero tolerance policy, which is family separation, the Muslim ban, and ending DACA, which, so in case anyone's unfamiliar with DACA slash Dreamers, DACA basically was going to provide a pathway to citizenship for people who were brought here, brought to America as children by their parents.

They lived here undocumented. They grew up that, you know, they paid sales tax. They have paid it. You know, they've contributed to the economy. They speak English. They went to American schools. Yeah. They, you know, and they just are sort of in limbo. And I think, to be honest, the fact the failure to deal with these people is part of what has sunk the Democrats. They should have made them citizens. Yeah. Well, they tried to. Stephen Miller had a part in making sure that didn't happen. Yeah.

So I want to start by playing a clip from the September debate.

Because I think this is a really good representation of Stephen Miller. And the numbers in Caracas, are you trusting the numbers of the dictatorship? I am trusting the fact that Kamala Harris is letting illegal immigrants into this country who are raping and murdering children. I have been very respectful. Why are you yelling? Do you know who Jocelyn Hungry is? Do you know who she is? Do you know how many people is experiencing violence in Caracas? Who is she? Who is Lake and Riley? Why are you yelling again? Because I'm

I'm yelling because children are being raped and murdered. I was just asking for figures and you have not replied to me about those figures. Do you know who Kayla Hamilton is? Do you trust the numbers of Nicolas Maduro I'm asking again? I trust a ruthless dictator will empty his prisons and send their criminals to our country. Do you trust his numbers? Yo, that's a lot. How do you get this much hate in your body at 39? He's like a lifelong dyed-in-the-wool xenophobe.

Tell us about him, though. Where did he grow up? Like in the deep south or something? Did he come from wildly racist parent? Like where did this come from? No, no, no. He grew up pretty affluent in Santa Monica, California to a Jewish family. He was only here because his grandparents escaped a pogrom in Belarus in 1903 and came to America as immigrants because he's Jewish. Okay.

So that's one thing. He and I went different ways in that sense. So his father was, I think, like pretty wealthy. But according to an interview with a biographer that I had read,

When Stephen Miller was a child, his dad had gotten—he was a real estate investor. He was kind of similar to Trump. He got tangled up in some legal disputes and bankruptcies tied to his real estate companies. The court documents described his father as a master of evasion and manipulation. Okay.

As a result of his legal troubles, Stephen Miller had to end up – he had to leave his private school and they had to move to a Santa Monica high school, which is – a public school that's very diverse and large. So they moved to a less affluent part of town. And I think he – that was like really traumatic for him. Okay. So it wasn't his father's fault. It was every minority ever's fault. Yeah.

So he goes to this new school, Santa Monica High School, and he starts allegedly telling his classmates to speak English, to go back to their countries. And he would go to school board meetings as a student and then argue against measures to, like, improve, you know, racial equity in the school. He was doing this before. As a student. As a student. Right.

In 2002, he gave a speech to his Santa Monica high school class saying, I will say and do things that no one else in their right mind will do. Am I the only one who was sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us? Oh, no, Stevie. He claimed he was being like Colbert-style satire, but when you hear about everything else that

that he did, it really doesn't sound like that. Look, this is why we got to get Nick Fuentes' ass right now. Nick Fuentes, that white nationalist who said, your body, my choice and whatnot, because he also, I mean, Stephen Miller and Nick Fuentes are the same in the way that they like are weird in high school and super hyper racist in high school.

And if we don't get Nick Fuentes locked up for something right now, he's going to turn into the next Stephen Miller. Okay, this is... It would be... I would believe that maybe he made that janitor comment as a joke if he didn't also abruptly end a friendship with one of his friends the summer before high school, someone who he had invited to his bar mitzvah the year before.

Wait, but did that friend get a candle? I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe all the friends get a candle. How close were they? Maybe it's like all the friends get a candle, like you all get a – and rather than just like drift away, it's like, you know, like, oh, we're not friends anymore. Stephen Miller gave him a whole list of reasons that they couldn't be friends anymore, and he like reads him a list of his personal flaws. And then one, the only thing that isn't like personal is that he can't be friends with them because of his Latino heritage.

And when he was 16, he wrote an op-ed in the local newspaper about the rampant political correctness that had consumed the high school and the district, lamenting that a number of classmates lacked basic English skills and that there were very few, if any, Latino students in honors classes. That's Latinx to you, Stephen, despite the number of Hispanic students that attend our school. He also criticized the school for making the morning announcements, hey, in both English and Spanish language.

And he was annoyed that people had regrets over how the United States treated the Native Americans. Okay, look, I think that we need to bring back bullying. I think that for the millennial generation, everything was very like, talk it out, don't use your hands. I got punched in the face by one of the few black girls at our school. Her name was Samaris.

And she thought that I wanted to date her boyfriend, Sergio. And I was like, I don't. And it was because I was gay. But she, but I wasn't out. And she was like, why? Because he's not good enough for you because you're racist. And I also, I just didn't, I just didn't know what to do. You don't even know. And she took her earrings out and punched me right in the face. And I laid on the ground because you know what? At that point,

that point, maybe I deserved a good punch in the face. Maybe I was headed down a bad path. But I'll tell you what, if somebody punched Stephen Miller in the face, I wasn't being racist. I was being closeted. But he was being outwardly racist. And I just wish that Samaras would have punched him in the face because it would have set him straight. We need to bring back punching racists in the face. Okay. You know what happened though? 9-11 happened when he was in high school. Oh,

too bad. You were in California. I was in Staten Island and I'm not a raging, terrible anti-Islamist person. Like you're awful. I'm so sick of people who were not there being like, this is my excuse to be super racist. No. Oh, you know what he, you know what he did? He said that Osama bin Laden would feel very welcome at Santa Monica high school because, and claimed that teachers gave him low grades because of his conservative political views. Yeah.

Oh, Stephen. He also... Oh my God, he's such a ghoul. There was one incidence of physical violence by Stephen Miller. Okay. Okay. When he was in high school, he was part of a California state government club, and he went to go... Nerd. To a mock city council. Nerd. He went to a mock election thing. Yeah, he was a nerd. He was interested in politics at a young age.

So people said at this like mock city council election, he was like really, really obsessed with winning. And he was like, he used dirty tricks at the mock city council election. But when he was voted out, he threw a tantrum and flipped over a table, Teresa Giudice style, screaming, you can't do this to me. Oh my God. Again, deal with your daddy issues and get punched in the face.

Do you want to know what his yearbook quote was? Oh, God, do I? It was a Teddy Roosevelt quote. Oh, Christ. There can be no 50-50 Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100% Americanism, only for those who are American and nothing else. Who knew Teddy Roosevelt was like so much?

But like, what is American about this level of hate, Stephen? Also, what is American? Like, it's not like you're connected to the founding father's brother, okay? Oh, no, he's not. No. He's connected to Belarusian Jews. So, you know, I'm questioning your Americanism. Do you think that, I mean, my question is like, how much damage do you need to have to

Does he have siblings? Is he an only child? He has a brother. He has a brother. So he doesn't have a sister. He got to go to private school after him. Oh, my God. He needed a sister. Sisters will set you straight. But also the fact that he was like in and then out and then his brother had a better life than him. Like you need to go to therapy and you need to relax. He's not going to go to therapy. No. Do you know why he actually became like prominent? No. And how he ended up getting big?

Do you remember the 2006 Duke lacrosse scandal? Vaguely. That was the incident that brought him to prominence. Okay, tell me. How? Okay. So basically in 2006, there was, this is the short story. He had to be young though then. So he was in college in 2006 at Duke. So the scandal revolved around, there was an accusation by a stripper who had been hired by the Duke lacrosse team.

who said that three of the players had raped her. Jesus, yeah. There was like a racial component to the story that Stephen Miller was fixated on because the lacrosse players had apparently requested white strippers. They got strippers who weren't white and they like allegedly yelled slurs at them.

So the stripper accuses them of rape. Before an investigation could take place, this, like, gets really public. Yeah. So, like, the accusation. And people are assuming that they were guilty. Sure. Stephen Miller becomes the lone defender of these lacrosse players and is saying and is, like, writing about it in the student paper all the time. And he basically made it about, like, the liberal campus believing the black stripper over the white players. And not about, like, the...

stripper being the woman being bullied over the man. Yeah. He made it a race thing over a gender thing. Yes, because there was a racial component to the story where like they had- Yeah, the racial component was these assholes were disappointed that they didn't have a white stripper. Yes, yes. And they were yelling and they had ordered, quote unquote, white stripper. Ordered, ordered. Oh my God, I'm gonna- That's who they called up for. It just pushed my throw up button, ordered. That's who they had called up for. And then the accusations actually turned out to not be true by DNA evidence.

So this was great for Stephen Miller because he had just been blindly defending them. Oh, okay. So he feels like really vindicated by this. And this brings his worldviews into place. And in his last column for Duke on this incident, he writes, "...for many at Duke, the last year offered a horrifying tutorial in the moral bankruptcy of the left's politically correct orthodoxy and the corruption of our culture at its hands. Three of our peers faced a devastating year-long persecution because they were white and their accuser black."

Yeah. So also while he was at Duke, he started working with far-right hate groups. And he crossed paths with Richard Spencer. You know who that is? Oh, yeah. While he was there. The Nazi that did get punched in the face. Look at it still. It all comes – and do you hear about Richard Spencer anymore? No. Richard Spencer noticed Stephen Miller because of his writings. And he was already a PhD candidate at Duke at the time. So they, like, crossed paths. Later on, Stephen Miller, like, disowns him. Yeah.

Early in the first administration because he didn't want to be associated with him. So I guess maybe your point is. Yeah, he got punched in the face. Got punched in the face. And then also he started working with these far right groups while he was there, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center who accused him of that. Specifically with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which is considered an anti-Muslim hate group. And he organized events such as Islamofascist Awareness Week and Terrorism Awareness Week. What? And Duke. Go to a party. Go to a party.

Bye-bye. Have a friend. Right, right. Have a friend. First of all, Duke is in what? It's in Chapel Hill, North Carolina area, Durham. Yep. Raleigh's right there, babe. You know what I mean? There's so much fun, great stuff. He doesn't want to have fun. Go to Asheville. Go on the zip line. He doesn't want to have fun. North Carolina's a beautiful state. He does not want to have fun. He wants to start Terrorism Awareness Project. What? No.

nerd. No, this is like what he did. He was like, I'm going to bring like lecturers here to talk about political correctness and why it's bad. And look like he's, look, talk about this man. He's consistent. This is nuts. So after that, he goes to work for Michelle Bachman. Oh my God. And then- Remember her? Oh yeah. She was like,

She ran in 2012, yeah. You know, he's in D.C., and this is when he now gets into D.C., and he's basically risen from there. Bachman was on the short list to be Romney's vice president before they went with Paul Ryan. Right, and then she said something weird. I don't remember. Well, this is where we say that it's more likely we'll have a Republican female president than a Democratic female president someday because they will put a woman out there Margaret Thatcher style to sort of soften iron-fisted policies.

And so Michelle Bachman was going to be Romney's. But, you know, Mormons can't be alone with women. Well, you look at Trump's cabinet, pretty diverse by DEI standards. There's a lot of women in there. The press secretary is a 27-year-old woman. Let's do a profile on her next. Yeah, I don't really know her. Maybe she'll come on the show. We should. Like, I would. I want to speak to people who are not just people who are going to blow smoke up our asses about things we already agree with. That is not the point of this. Right.

The next thing he does is he goes to work for Jeff Sessions. Oh. Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions. I do not recall Mr. Mueller. Yeah. And when he was working for him, when he was the Alabama senator before he became the attorney general, who was then fired by Donald Trump, Sessions worked with Stephen Miller to almost single-handedly kill the 2013 bipartisan immigration reform bill that would have saved the Dreamers and given them a path to citizenship. So it's not like he wants—

That was 11 million people who were that affected. He was so young to be this hateful, too. Right. Like, he was this hateful when he was in high school. Yeah. This is a person who has a chip the size of the Hershey's factory on his shoulder. Yeah, he's big. He's, yeah.

In his first term, he was the engineer of the family separation policy. I think that deserves its own episode. Cruelty is the point. Yeah. And a White House advisor told Vanity Fair during the first term that Stephen actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border. I bet he does. He doesn't even want the people to have a legal path.

He just wants white people. But, you know, they don't even think you're white. But only certain kind of white people and only for him to be at the top of that heap, which is, is he married or anything? Yes, he's married to, he got married during the first term to a woman who also worked in the administration named Katie Waldman. And she is adorable. And I have a theory. And my theory is that people assume that good looking couples are happier. And that's what I have to say about Stephen Miller and his wife.

In 2012, she was, okay, at the University of Florida, she was active in the student government's Unite party. In 2012, she was involved in a scandal where she was caught destroying hundreds of copies of the school's newspaper after it endorsed an opposing student government candidate.

These two are close. Wow. Okay. Destroying evidence. She was Mike Pence's press secretary. So it seems like they're like- Mike Pence. Where's he in the world now? Probably, he should move abroad. He's in danger, boo. No, I think they're going to trot him out as like a puppet or something. Like a gimp? Yeah.

They're going to be like, look at this. Yeah, I think they will. The hate is outrageous. It does build community, apparently. It's a lot easier to get people to hate the same thing than to like the same thing.

They had a workplace affair mid-family separation. Could you imagine bonding over separating immigrant children from their parents? No, and I bring it up again. I think the Republicans have weird sadist kinks. Yeah, they have humiliation kinks, certainly. I mean, the humiliation of RFK Jr. has only just begun. They got married at the Trump Hotel. Of course.

Do you think Trump's going to move to the White House? No. I don't think he's going to. Why? Well, the only reason he moved to the White House the first time is because he had that hotel when he owned the old post office and that was his hotel and he kind of like, he made it like his own, but. If I were him, I wouldn't move to the White House. I don't see him moving to the White House. I think he'll do it from like Mar-a-Lago. Melania sure as hell is not moving back to the White House. She hated it there. I don't think they should move. If I were him, I would not. Why would you? What would be the point? Yeah. He doesn't like it there. If I were president, I wouldn't move to the White House. I know. I know.

Sam Lloyd Harper. What did he say? It's a dump. Remember when he first moved there and he called it a dump? Look, it's old. We need a new construction. I know. Look, we need some, we need a flip. We need to flip the White House.

Oh, God. No, last time she did, she redid a lot of the carpeting and stuff in the White House. Melania did. She redid a lot of the White House, actually, and people were not happy with it. She redid the Rose Garden. The Christmas. The thing that a lot of folks don't understand about the White House and the first family is you actually do have to be rich to be the president because a lot of the stuff you do is on your own dime. Things like if you get China silver glass, you have to buy that. Like when people have their own China pattern. I'm so interested to see what he's going to do for the state dinner. Wait, what do you mean?

Why do you have to buy your own? You do. Because the American taxpayers don't support a lot of the frivolous things. So all the social parties, a lot of that comes off the first family's dime. A lot of the stuff the first lady's office does has a very small budget. And then they do the rest. Things like the Rose Garden, the way that they transformed the backyard to be Commander's dog spot for Biden, he had to pay for that. That makes sense. But when they do state dinners, typically in your second term, if it's necessary or if you want to, you can buy to have your own

like personalized China. Why wouldn't you get in your first term? Because it's like, there's not enough time. So it's typically something if they know they're going to get a second term, they'll like invest in it for their second state dinner. I hope Biden didn't get one. No, Biden did not get his own China. I would get my own China. I would do it first. It'd be the first thing I did. It'd be the first thing I did. That's why I'm not the president. For Trump's, oh, we should do like an episode on all the social stuff of the White House because people would like that, I think. It's so interesting. Let me give you this tea.

For Trump's first state dinner, his inaugural dinner, he used the Clinton china. Why? Because he had just beat Hillary Clinton. Why did they keep their china? Well, they keep sets of it. So you could have it on the Abraham Lincoln china. You could have it on all these different – there's all these different sets of china that you can host dinners on. It's like a historical fun thing. Does Trump have china? He does not yet. So the first dinner he ate off of the Clinton's china, which is all gold.

Very pretty. Very Trumpy. And I'm going to tell you, at this state dinner, you watch him eat off of Obama's china. Why is that insulting? Because it's like, why not do it off the Reagan china? Why not do it off anybody else's? It's like when he did it off the Clinton china, it was like he was eating Hillary's lunch. This should have been hers and now it's mine. I'm going to bet you that he uses the Obama china this time, we'll see. I hope that's the worst thing they do. Yeah, but it's all these little shitty things.

I mean, the China's there. I know, but. Biden could take it. He could be like, this is mine. No, he can't. He can't. It's like of the White Houses. But the thing is like everything you do has a reason. That's why when I said when Jill wore red to the polls, I thought that that was not

on purpose. One thing I did think was interesting that we learned when we went to the Correspondence Center is that the ambassadors actually have to pay for their own ambassadorship. They pay for all their parties. It costs $4 million a year to be the ambassador to France. Who has that? Who has $4 million to just be the ambassador? You're running your own... Yep. Your own house, your own staff, all your travel, everything. You are like a royal for four years. Now, some of the less fun ambassadorships do have a stipend that come with them. If you're the ambassador to...

I think like more war-torn or difficult countries where we're actually trying to like build diplomatic relations, you get a little stipend because you're working. But if it's like France or like somewhere super fun, you have to pay for yourself. Well, it's like a fun job. That's the only reason. What if you can't afford it? You don't get to be it. So you have to say that you can financially like do it. And this is why people think. It's very elite. That's why there's populism because –

Fucking people. How are you supposed to be an ambassador under conditions like this? I don't know. This isn't fair. I know. I want to be the ambassador. I want to be. Not that the French like me. Where would you be an ambassador to? Oh, Italy. Oh, yeah. Spain, Italy for sure. Somewhere that's. We're good. Somewhere where it's like we're not like. God.

I fear that I would like fall into corruption because I was such a party girl, right? Like I'd want to be the ambassador to like Albania and then I'd like accidentally be in the mafia again. You know what? You know what I would do? I would do Portugal. Oh, see, that'd be fun. Nothing. Yeah, it would be nice and safe. What are your problems with Portugal? No, it's a great place. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Your quick hop over. I would be, I'd be, I, this is why I can't be an ambassador because I would be like

I'd be like, well, I'm just going to do – You'd be punching people in the face. I'd be punching them in the face. I'd be decked out in all the gold jewelry on the beaches of Albania. I'd be right back. It's in my blood. Are you allowed to accept gifts as an ambassador? So you have to pay $4 million and you can't even get any gifts? Nope. Fucking crazy. Nope. Bullshit. Well, I guess I won't be being that. Who knows if we're even going to have ambassadors?

Well, he doesn't staff. So, yeah, I mean, that's going to be some of the issues with the Trump administration as well as like we're going to open the cabinet of curiosities. We're going to tell you about the people that are there, give you the background, because I think it's important to like know the origin stories of villains so that we can like best address them. Well, now you know the villain origin story of Stephen Miller. Oh, Stephen Miller. He –

He didn't staff a lot last time because he thinks – and with this new Doge – first of all, Doge is not real. The Elon Vivek department is not real. They have no power. They can advise. They have no power. It's going to do something, though. It's going to be annoying. It will do something. But last time – I describe it as the flagship – I describe Doge as the flagship store of the patronage shop that is this administration. Yes, very true. Well, he didn't staff a lot of things last time.

Like the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He didn't staff last time. He doesn't believe that there are any. But we will keep you updated on everything that happens in the Trump administration, all the new appointments, all the new plans that they have moving very quickly. Yeah, because we don't sleep. We just scroll. We'll eat the news for you and then spit it back in bite-sized segments like a baby bird. With jokes.

So that is it for this week, folks. Next week, we have a special episode with one of my faves, Jared Freed. I love him. One half of the Betches You Up podcast. He'll be here on Tuesday. And then there will be no new episode on Thanksgiving. So enjoy your turkey or your tofurkey or whatever else you're having. Some people have ham. Can you believe that?

Well, I'm a Jew, so I can't. I know. Tell us about your weird Thanksgiving tradition. Send us emails. We love your emails. Make sure you're watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade, doing all those fun tradition things while we still have them. I want to know what people's traditions are. My traditions are to make a dry hand turkey.

With a paper. Mine is to fight my sister for like who can eat the most deviled eggs. Good competition. White people stuff. White people stuff. Yeah, it's literally just, I mean, it's white people deviled eggs. We're talking about cutting them in half, mashing up the yellows with some mayonnaise, salt and pepper and calling it a day. What is not white people deviled eggs? I don't know. Seasoning? Anyway, enjoy your Thanksgiving, whatever traditions it may bring you, and we will see you next week. Bye. Bye.

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.