11/14/24: Matt Gaetz Tapped For AG, Trump Shocks With Tulsi Pick, Biden Welcomes Trump To White House, Trump Team Fed Up With Elon
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Good morning, everyone. We have a girl show for you today. Sager is out. Where is he, Crystal? Sager made a little trip down to Austin to record a couple podcasts with Lex Friedman and with Matt and Shane on their podcast. So I'm looking forward to seeing all of those, and he will be back here on Monday. But very glad, as always, to have you here with us, Emily. It's a pleasure.

It's such a blast, and when Saga goes on his honeymoon, everyone will get an extra dose of The Girl Show. That's right. Yeah, buckle up. That's right. That is coming very soon. In the meantime, we have very much news to bring you this morning. It's morning in America, folks. I saw Ryan make the fascist and furious joke yesterday. Yeah, he did. Good job, Ryan. And then someone tweeted, like, nine sequels to come. Yes, correct. Because it's like, what are we on fast-

Yeah, that's exactly right. And many of those sequels are coming this morning. So some pretty wild picks that we'll go through, some very interesting ones. We're also taking a look at Elon's influence on this administration. Some reports that the staff is already getting irritated with him because he's just like around all the time. And of course, there's always jockeying for power. And right now, Elon appears to have Trump's ear. So look into those dynamics as well. James Carville, absolutely shocking me and saying that, hey, you know,

Maybe that Bernie Sanders had a point. I never would have thought that those words would come out of his mouth. David Brooks has also said something similar. Wild times we're living through here, people. At the same time, New York Times facing a lot of scrutiny over taking down a video because it showed actually the polar opposite of what they had originally claimed that it showed and no longer served their narrative purpose. So they pulled that.

I'm taking a look at what billionaires want out of the Trump administration, and we've got a great guest on the Democratic side to talk about how Democrats failed to appeal to young men. So that should be an interesting conversation as well. Hugely interesting conversation. And speaking of interesting conversations, Crystal, we are about to have...

one because we could go ahead and put A1 up on the screen. Donald Trump nominated Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States yesterday evening. Yes. And Crystal was celebrating right away.

She was like, this is surprisingly refreshing. It's something. It was surprising. That part was true. This part, this Axios report talks about how Republicans were stunned and disgusted at Trump picking Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Now, the, I

I think the spin on that would be, you know, he's unorthodox on this and that position. True, true. He is no doubt about it, but he also is just an unrepentant asshole and is probably the most hated figure among his colleagues on Capitol Hill. You can back this up probably better than I can. Yeah. He, he, even among Republicans, first of all, even among Republicans, as you said, like MAGA type Republicans, I was talking to one source that's definitely MAGA yesterday. And it was just

That's where it's described the reaction among types on Capitol Hill and on the House side as quote "Veepish." Everyone was just shocked. And he is, to your point, Crystal, he's really beloved by the base. Like if you go to a Trump event and Gates is there, people love Matt Gates.

who are not in DC, which to most people would be like, oh, that means you're doing something right. That's a good thing. But in this case, it's because the more you've interacted with him, the more you're like, oh, no, no, no, no. You are just in this for fame and podcasting. And now I guess the Attorney General. That's definitely the vibe. I have my own personal experience with him. We interviewed him a couple times over at Rising.

some of those times were actually even before soccer was there when it was myself and Buck Sexton that was, um, co-hosting. And I remember one memorable incident in particular where he was quite upset with the tea selection in the green room and started raging at the intern there about how inadequate it was and storming around. So, um, that's just kind of the vibe he brings to the table. Um,

You know, I saw some people even like, you know, Matt Stoller was like, oh, look at, he's good on antitrust. And you know, it's true. He likes Lena Kahn. He does genuinely have some like outside of the traditional Republican type of views.

But that also, in my opinion, is definitely not why he was put in the job. You know, there's a few things that are going on here. I mean, Trump says he wants retribution. And Matt Gaetz is the type of guy who will deliver for him in that regard. You know, in the first administration, Trump kept us.

asking his White House lawyer, Don McGahn, how can I get the Justice Department to do what I want it to do and basically be a tool for me? And the topic came up so often, according to reporting, that ultimately McGahn, and it was someone else who was in the administration at that point whose name I'm blanking on, wrote a memo of like, listen,

The Justice Department is supposed to be independent. Here is what you can do. Here's what you can't do. And it was they made a point of not only putting sending this memo to Trump, but also leaking it. So.

so that there would be a record that they had instilled in him, like here are the rules and the boundaries, because this was something he was very interested in. What he figured out in the first term eventually is that even though he couldn't just call Jeff Sessions or whoever was the AG after that and be like, I want you to go after this person, that if he said something publicly,

then if he had someone who was sufficiently loyal in that position, they would pick up on, oh, he wants me to do X and Y and Z. And so John Kerry was one of the people, I don't even remember what this beef was over at this point, but was one of the people that had pissed him off. And so he talked about that publicly. The Justice Department started investigating John Kerry. Jim Comey was another one, of course. So that was how he did that in the first administration.

This time around, you know, he's got a guy who's going to be even more who already really knows who Trump would want him to go after. The other piece with Matt Gaetz, and we can put this next part up on the screen that is significant to note, is he immediately resigned his seat in Congress, which is unusual.

Because in two days' time, the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing what's described as a highly damaging report outlining its investigation into Matt Gaetz, according to multiple sources familiar with that probe. So by resigning immediately before that investigation comes out – and again, this is an investigation from a Republican-controlled House –

He's hoping to short circuit the release of those findings. He had previously himself been investigated by the Justice Department for potential sex trafficking of a minor. No charges were ultimately filed. This ethics investigation is said to be related to

that line of inquiry and perhaps some others. One of his colleagues has accused him, one of his Republican colleagues, Senator Mark, what's his name? I always forget his name. Mark? Mark Wayne Mullen. Wayne Mullen, yes. Mark Wayne Mullen, yeah. That last name always serves me for a loop. Anyway, he has accused Gates of always showing around on the House floor naked pictures of the women that he's sleeping with. Oh.

various things of that nature. So that's the type of guy we're talking about here. And the last thing I'm saying that gets your reaction, Emily, and see if you agree with that or what you think is going on here is, um,

There's been a lot said, of course, about the potential damaging information possible that's out there on Matt Gaetz. In one hand, you know, that seems like, oh, that could be a problem for him with his colleagues. Obviously, they don't like him already. This report could still come out. You only need one Republican on the committee to actually vote for it to come out and join the Democrats for there to be a majority for it to be released. It could also very easily be leaked. But the other piece of that is if you're Trump,

and you know some damaging information about Matt Gaetz, that also gives you an insurance policy that this person is going to do exactly what you want them to do or else...

you have this damaging information that you also could very easily release. That's a really smart point, actually. I didn't even think about that because it would make sense that Trump would want total compliance in an attorney general role, obviously. Like you said, Gates already kind of knows the types of people that Donald Trump would want to go after. And this is one of the big debates in the Republican world period right now is what to do with lawfare in a second Trump administration because this sort of consensus position is that you have to fight fire with fire.

So if they're going to go after Donald Trump with the fire of their own lawfare, Comey is a really good example of this. I mean, I think there were some pretty obviously objectionable things, even some people on the left. Oh, I agree with that. I mean, it was outrageous, some of the things that James Comey did. So then the debate now on the right is whether you have your own James Comey, right? Do you put Comey in here to sort of mess with—who are you going to spy on? Those types of things. And these questions are actually very—

much being debated. And Matt Gaetz comes down on one side of that debate. Yeah. And I think, you know, Lee Fong wrote a piece, actually, it's up in Unheard this morning about how

Matt Gaetz has a, I think it was called the progressive populist case for Matt Gaetz. And I'm reading it, I'm like, actually, Matt Gaetz has some really genuinely heterodox, like on Syria, on Africa, his policies have been consistent and sort of like libertarian foreign policy type things. And then on the other hand, he's been so good on Lena Khan. Like just when nobody else was defending Lena Khan, Matt Gaetz will defend Lena Khan. And it's just like,

Okay, all of that may be true, but he's crazy. I'm glad I'm not the only one at this table saying that. He's crazy. It's like Trump is not mostly ideological, right? And so if you're trying to parse and think that any of these picks are really about ideology, they're not. They're about who he thinks. Sometimes it's like who he thinks looks the right part, right? Or who he liked on Fox News or whatever. Yeah.

And with this one, remember J.D. Vance during the campaign said that the attorney general position was going to be one of the most important ones. With this one, I think loyalty, like having someone who is going to be a sycophant, who is going to do exactly what he wants him to do.

that is the main qualifying position. I don't think it had anything to do with Matt Gaetz's position on Lena Khan because, I mean, Elon Musk, who is... Although that is relevant at DOJ. It is relevant at DOJ. But, I mean, I...

I would be shocked if Lena Khan stays in her job because you've got Elon Musk, who was Trump's biggest funder, and we're about to cover how influential he is in all of this. He is at war with Lena Khan, as are almost the entirety of the billionaire class, quite a few of whom lined up behind Donald Trump. So it would be shocking to me if Trump didn't deliver her head on a platter for a lot of the big donors who were backing him. But the other thing I'll say about...

Matt Gaetz, I'm curious your read on this one too, Emily, is that when this first came out,

People, a lot of people across the political spectrum thought like, well, this is just kind of a ploy. Gates is like a sacrificial lamb to kind of like grease the skins so that other nominees make it through the Senate more easily because he's so wild and out there that Republicans in the Senate can show that they have some independence by voting him down and then it'll make it easier to get the rest of the nominees through.

I don't buy that at all. I don't buy that at all. I think Trump, and there's reporting to suggest this now. In fact, I think we might have some reporting on this. But anyway. Mark Caputo reported on it. Yeah. Right. So-

Trump is very serious about getting Matt Gaetz in. And if he wants a nominee in, he's gonna get a nominee in, which is why I always thought the RFK Jr. getting floated for some cabinet secretary and people like, "I will make it through Senate confirmation." That doesn't matter. Trump has already gamed out how he can either put people in as acting secretaries, as he's done in the past,

Or the real plan appears to be to use recess appointments to get anyone through who wouldn't otherwise pass confirmation. And I think it's true that Matt Gaetz would have trouble getting through, you know, even this Republican Senate. They have a 53 to 47 seat majority. But if you think of like, you know, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, there you go. There's your three. Well, you just mentioned Mark Wayne Mullen, who is like a conservative. Well, actually, I think he's already come out and said that Trump knows what he's doing. So I...

Don't get me wrong. The overwhelming, like probably 50 of the 53 senators are likely to back every single one of Trump's picks, no matter how wild they are. But it still does put you on the margins with Matt Gaetz, where he could get voted down going through a Senate confirmation process. But, you know, reportedly they already have discussed how they're going to get around that and circumvent that. So I think you can expect Matt Gaetz to be attorney general of the United States.

Yeah, there was a lot of conversation in conservative circles where people, to your point, Crystal, were sort of shocked by this. And they were like, it must be 4-D chess. Like, this must be a way to get Matt Gaetz to be governor of Florida. So Matt Gaetz drops out of the seat. He becomes governor of Florida. Or it's like you said, greasing the skids. So if you don't want to vote for Matt Gaetz, that's fine. Make sure you vote for Pete Hegseth, right? Like, I understand. Okay, Gaetz, I get it. It's Gaetz. But like-

If you're gonna not vote for Gates, you are gonna vote for Pete Hagseth. He was like a bargaining chip essentially. And it's possible it's a little bit of both, right? That the first and foremost, the reason Donald Trump wanted Matt Gates is because he wants Matt Gates. And then he realized what maybe puts it over the edge is like, okay, we'll say people say that's their line in the sand.

Well, we can definitely get Pete through that, something like that. But I think it's absolutely true that he wants Attorney General Matt Gaetz. Like, that's the bottom line. Yeah. And I think he wants, if he wants something, he's going to get it. You know, he is firmly, he's never been more in control of this Republican Party. So.

So the voices of resistance that were there on the Republican side back when he came into office in 2016, I think you're going to see a lot. Not that there won't be any, but I think you're going to see a lot less of that. We've got a clip we'll show you later that I think backs that up. And the other thing that, as someone who's left of center here, looking at the way Republicans operate and the way Trump operates in particular versus how Democrats operate, Democrats would be like, oh, I don't

"No, if they can make it through Senate confirmation, "we're gonna try to go ahead and triangulate "to the person that we think can make it through." And, you know, there's this little rule that might keep us from being able to get it done. And with Trump, it's like, "No, I want this thing. "I'm gonna find out a way to make it happen.

and come hell or high water, like if I want Matt Gaetz as my Attorney General, Matt Gaetz is going to be Attorney General. So I think that's probably the way to look at it. Republicans are very uncomfortable with it. They don't want to. Some are. I mean, there's even conservative Republicans are uncomfortable with it because they were always deferential to Senate procedure and to like the kind of traditions. I mean, they're conservative, but...

Nope, not anymore. Yeah, well, and we're going to get in a little bit, we now know who the Senate Majority Leader is going to be. It is not actually the pick that MAGA and Trump wanted, but Trump had already put out this thing of whoever is the Senate Majority Leader has to commit to doing recess appointments. This can get in the weeds, I know, but, you know, the Senate, it's this very prideful institution, and one of their primary responsibilities is advising consent on

the nominees and going through this process and questioning them, et cetera, et cetera. And all of the people who were seeking that job immediately when Trump said that said, no problem, we'll do it. It's all you. And that represents, you know, immediate sort of abdication of an important power that they had to Donald Trump. So to me, that's indicative of the tone and the, you know, the power dynamics that you're likely to see throughout this administration.

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Gates is not the only big, very interesting pick that we got yesterday. Let's go ahead and put A1C up on the screen. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped to serve as Trump's director of national intelligence. Of course, Tulsi was previously a Democrat, previously very critical of Trump and his foreign policy. She said famously, like, being Saudi Arabia's bitch is not America first.

A tweet which apparently is still up to this day, Emily, which is kind of an incredible statement in and of itself. Did she at Kushner? I think it was implied. It was a subtweet. Amazing. Yeah. So anyway, she's going to be director of national intelligence. She also had there was some indication that she was herself being surveilled under the Biden administration when she was moving through airports. She was like being tracked, et cetera. So what do you make of this particular tweet?

pick. Well, I think it's really fascinating that it's likely now we'll have, because recess appointment's a great example, or the reason why. I mean, Tulsi Gabbard is someone who would actually have a hard time with Senate confirmation, and we may see that happen, and we may see a recess appointment in this case. But yeah,

To have her and Marco Rubio side by side, I mean, just take both of them on Syria. Just go back and look at how both of them handled the question of Syria. It is their foreign policies distilled into this perfect contrast. They are so incredibly different from one another that it's

amazing to think this is, I mean, DNI is not a joke. That's a very serious position. It's a powerful position. Obviously the same will be said of Secretary of State. So that those two will have those clashing viewpoints, I think a lot of regular Americans will say that's really good. The other possibility is it's a total mess. It's just a total disaster because nobody can get on the same page.

Our allies and enemies are hearing different things from different people, and nothing is clear. So again, maybe there's something good that comes from it. I can't think of a modern precedent for having that polarized viewpoint in such high-profile positions in such a way that it's your worldview. Not just like a policy difference on Syria, for example, but Syria as a representation of how— I mean, Marco Rubio is an old-school Cold Warrior who has had a shift—

towards realism, but I wouldn't call him a realist. He said a shift towards realism. He didn't vote for the Ukraine aid package that was in the spring. But as some people have pointed out, he really kind of hemmed and hawed about why he didn't vote for it. And there were a lot of different reasons that he gave. He's been fairly supportive of Ukraine. He recently called the war stalemates. He says it needs to come to an end. So at least that's something

thing. But in Latin America, he's like old school cold warrior. He obviously was very supportive of older policies in the Middle East, as was Pete Hegseth, by the way, although he seems to have, as Dan Caldwell at Concerned Vets, who worked with him at Concerned Vets, has said he shifted. I think Marco Rubio has shifted less than

than a lot of people on the right. Am I remembering this correctly? Like, just a couple months ago, Tulsi said that Marco Rubio would be a disastrous pick. Yes, in July. She did an interview on Megyn Kelly's show on July 10th and said this would be a really bad sign and a big mistake. Yeah, I mean, Marco Rubio, like, by any reasonable standard, is a neocon. Like, you know, I think there's...

And Sagar made this point. I think this is an important point. Like, it's one thing for people at this moment, given how clear the issue is on the Republican side of the ledger to pull back with regard to Ukraine. It's another thing to have been, you know, correct from the beginning on things like the Iraq war on Afghanistan. And, you know, the other thing is that

Trump himself, there's no indication he is anti-war, even as it's possible. And even this is really not clear that he may take a different approach on Ukraine. But like I said, even that is not totally clear because he has been on both sides of that issue as well. And at this time, hit Joe Biden from the hawkish end of saying, like, you're not doing enough.

for the Ukrainians. But it's more that, you know, some of the critics of the Ukraine war, they're more interested in, hey, we need to like keep our powder dry so that we can potentially go to war with China. None of these individuals, Tulsi included, Tulsi has completely shifted her position with regard to Israel. She used to be critical and now she's, you know, completely on board with whatever Israel wants to do. Otherwise, I don't think she would be in this particular position.

position, dare I say, given that, you know, AIPAC seems to have had a lot of influence, whether overt or covert, they've had a lot of influence in terms of the foreign policy related picks in particular. - His ambassador to Israel is Mike Huckabee. So, I mean, it would be hard for Tulsi Gabbard to have her old positions on Israel. - Yes, and Hegseth is equally like as sort of like, you know, Messianic has this very like religiously driven view.

of Israel. And this is quite unprecedented. I mean, obviously our foreign policy has always been like lockstep with Israel, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know,

Huckabee is the type where it's not just the Biden administration sort of like agreed with Yoav Galant, who was also, in my view, like a maniac and said that Palestinians like are animals, et cetera, et cetera. But he was at least interested in, hey, how do we get our own hostages back? Huckabee and Hegsath are more in line with like Ben-Gavir and Smotrich that are like, we need to just end this problem once and for all, take over the West Bank. Like this is, you know, our religious fulfillment.

fulfillment of religious prophecy. And they're all sort of like weirdly on the same page with that. So it does represent a shift in that regard. We'll move on to talk a little bit more about Rubio. But I also one thing I was thinking about both with regard to the quote unquote deep state and with regard to the Department of Justice is that

Trump, the way he portrays these type of picks is like, I'm going to make sure that justice is done and that it's not weaponized, et cetera. That's not actually what he wants. He wants justice.

He wants it to be weaponized the way he wants it to be weaponized. That was true in the first administration. I think it'll be even more true now. And, you know, he's been pretty upfront about that. It's the same thing with things like surveillance, which falls under the Tulsi Gabbard DNI, where it's not that he's opposed to mass surveillance. It's not that he's opposed to censorship. It's that he wants it to be applied to his enemies. So.

So, you know, things like surveilling any sort of left movement, racial justice, you know, economic justice, certainly the pro-Palestine movement, like any, you know, resurgent like Black Lives Matter movement, anything like that, he would be totally cool, if not affirmatively in support of.

of the type of surveillance that's been weaponized against all kinds of activist groups across the board. And we've already seen his positions with regard to censorship. I mean, he wants to deport anyone who is pro-Palestine. He wants flag burning to be banned. The list goes on and on. So it's not like he's actually

pro-First Amendment. He just wants speech restrictions to be applied in the way that serves him and goes against his own political enemies. So I think that's the other thing to keep in mind when we're talking about the powers at DNI. Yeah, and there's some Republicans who are really strong on free speech and consistent, you know, like Thomas Massey. Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully Tulsi Gabbard, but I mean, I think it's

an open question and Rand Paul, but you need one of them. You know what I mean? It's so easy for the others to slip into, this is anti-Semitic speech. Of course it must be surveilled. Or of course it's anti-Semitic. It must be connected to foreign terrorist groups. So of course it falls under this umbrella or it goes into this category of something we have to surveil. So it's just very, very easy for even people who are anti-establishment Republicans to slip into that.

That's right. I mean, I think that is also a huge unanswered question. And there...

I'm optimistic about Tulsi Gabbard. I'm one of the, like, I still have faith in Tulsi. But we'll see. Yeah, we will. I mean, the reason I don't is because she's just totally flipped her position on so many issues with no explanation for it. And so, you know, to me, it just seems like she made a calculation that her path to having more—

influence, power, etc., was just to come on board with Trump and whatever that entailed. And hey, she played her cards right. Worked out for her. I'd rather have a Trump administration with Tulsi Gabbard and Marco Rubio than, and I like Marco Rubio, honestly, but then just Marco Rubio. You know what I mean? Like, it just makes me more comfortable as an American that there's at least some divergence on really critical issues. And yes, I think Gabbard has changed her mind on some key things. But some of those have been

I mean, I just don't have a sense that maybe other than Israel, she's had a fundamental shift in her worldview on foreign policy in a way that would put her in line with a Marco Rubio. So I think we could be in for some really interesting disagreement in the Trump administration. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how this all plays out. It is definitely going to be interesting. We've referenced this already. We could put a two up on the screen. Marco Rubio, it is official in for secretary of state.

Emily, what happened here? Because this got reported and there was kind of a freakout on the MAGA side because he is a neocon. And, you know, little Marco Trump himself had very critical words of him to say in the past about how he'd be Sheldon Adelson's puppet, et cetera, et cetera. How far we've come from those days. I, you know, anyway.

There was a delay in the release of this name on the Trump side. There was some suggestion that like, oh, you know, Tucker was flying down to talk to him. And there was this whole coalescing of all these people who are going to try to talk him out of putting Marco Rubio in its state. But ultimately, Marco Rubio is in its state. So what do you make of all of that? What can you what can you say about that? I mean, I think it was so the Rubio people were really confident from the beginning. So I think they and

Someone was confident, obviously, enough to leak it to Maggie Haberman. Right. But that said, even after it's leaked to The New York Times, there's a series of days where Donald Trump makes all of these other major announcements and of people who are much less orthodox picks than a senator. You know, Pete Hegseth is a good example. Right. And Marco Rubio comes, what, Wednesday night, Wednesday evening, somewhere around there.

I mean, yeah, I think there was serious—I think there was an effort to thwart it among people. You know, people can probably guess who they are. If you remember when Dave Smith tweeted something like, the battle against Mike Pompeo is good, but we have to make sure there are no neocons in this administration, Don Jr., Donald Trump Jr., quote tweeted that and said, agree 100, I'm on it.

Yeah, I'm on it. And so I think, you know, you could probably read into what happened over the series of days. There were some leaks that it was coming from Rick Grinnell's camp. Yeah.

Rick Grinnell obviously would have wanted a position similar to that. And he hasn't he doesn't have anything so far. Not DNI, not CIA. Those are all things that he was talking about for not DOD. Any of those like it just didn't happen for Rick Grinnell. And I think there probably was. Rick Grinnell said he wasn't the one leaking negative things about Marco Rubio. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't people in his camp.

It doesn't mean it wasn't people in his camp, and it doesn't mean, actually, that other... Whether they were in his camp or not, it doesn't mean that, you know, maybe somebody like Donald Trump Jr. or Tucker Carlson weren't lobbying really hard for basically anyone but Marco Rubio or John Bolton, obviously, but basically anyone other than Marco Rubio because they see him as a pretty, like... That's a...

holdover from the previous Republican Party on foreign policy. Right. And so the fact that he gets chosen anyway, in spite of that kind of relatively organized effort to block him, what do you think that that indicates about who has influence? Yeah, I mean, I think that tells you exactly what's going to happen in this administration that, you know, and I... Do you read into that Susie Wiles or...

Susie Wiles, probably Susie Wiles. Susie Wiles, by the way, is, you know, has been affiliated with Mercury, which is like the swampiest lobbying firm in D.C. We're talking pharma, like all the bad guys. And it was who Paul Manafort was lobbying for when he was lobbying on behalf of the party of regions in Ukraine. He was doing it as a part through Mercury. And so, yeah.

There's just a lot of, I think, donor class baggage that comes with La Cevita and Suzy Wiles. And I wonder, actually, if the announcement of Tulsi as DNI, which came out either right before or right after Rubio, maybe right after the Rubio announcement, was part of that push and pull with Don Jr., Tucker Carlson, and others saying, like, okay... Well, at least give us, throw us a bone here, basically. Yeah, throw us a bone. Right, yeah. So I...

I kind of wonder if that's what happened in all of the infighting because what was happening over the course of this week, like I had a source who was very knowledgeable about the transition who said the Trump people don't fully trust Tulsi Gabbard. Ryan and I talked about this yesterday. That's not Trump himself, but Trump world doesn't fully trust Tulsi Gabbard. And so she was kind of on the chopping block. Rubio, I think, absolutely was on the chopping block. It seemed like Trump was pretty set on the pick, but there was still...

intense fighting among Don Jr. and others. So I don't know if Rubio, maybe this is an interesting part of the story, if Rubio indicated that his foreign policy was shifting more than maybe publicly we've seen his foreign policy shift in a way that made them feel comfortable, but it's hard to imagine. I mean those guys are aligned basically with the Tulsi Gabbard ideology.

And I don't know how Rubio could have indicated anything to them that would say he was really in that category. Yeah, and the thing is, with Trump, if he actually takes an interest in something and has a clear ideological position, everyone's going to fall in line with whatever it is he wants. It's just that he doesn't always have...

And then it becomes, okay, well, what are the voices in the room saying? What are the options that are being presented? And we've seen him be very kind of malleable in the past based on who happens to be around him, et cetera, on something that isn't core. So in any case, to me, that was an interesting indication of the way some of these intra-MAGA battles are playing out. And when Susie Wiles was first named chief of staff,

I was a little bit surprised by that, to be honest with you. But I also was surprised that there wasn't concern over that in MAGA World because the thought was like, oh, she's just an apparatchik. She's just not ideological. There's no such thing.

In this town, there's no such thing as non-ideological. Non-ideological basically defaults to like whatever the sort of mainstream conventional wisdom is, you know? And so I think perhaps her fingerprints and her influence seems to be on some of these pics. But also, you know, Trump is a big boy and makes up his own mind. And I always get irritated when people are like, oh, this it's the fault of this person. It's the fault of that person. It's like this isn't

This is the man that was elected president of the United States. He's had years to think about who he wants in these positions. He's making up his own mind. So, you know, he also deserves like direct blame credit, however you want to look at it for the picks that he is ultimately putting forward. Rubio is certainly another one in the, you know, Miriam Maddison, very pleased with this pick as well. He's been extremely aggressive and hawkish, um,

you know, on the side of Israel. There was a report Michael Tracy tweeted out on Israeli media, apparently, quote unquote, dancing the horror in Netanyahu's office over Trump filling his administration with, quote, old school Republicans, not exactly music to the ears of people like Tucker Carlson or Dave Smith et al. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of that.

And going back to Mike Wagenheim, Mike, just in the past hour, the Trump team confirming the pick of Mike Walz as the national security advisor. And I don't want to exaggerate and say that Israel, the government here and its supporters are breathing a sigh of relief over these picks. But certainly, I think some of the concerns they had about the next administration have been

eased by picking certainly these three, and especially Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, people who have, for example, spoken with I-24 News just in recent months about their strong support of Israel and their concerns over Iran.

Not just breathing a sigh of relief, Kyle. They're dancing the horror right now at the prime minister's office with these selections by Donald Trump. I mean, we were expecting some isolationists that possibly in those positions or maybe some who lean at least a little bit toward Trump's new foreign policy and the MAGA foreign policy.

Hasn't been that case at all. I mean, Rubio and Mike Walz are in the mold of old school Republicans on policy, both pro-Israel stalwarts to the hilt. They'll challenge anybody who views the situation otherwise. I mean, you couldn't have selected...

two better picks I think if you're sitting in the Prime Minister's office right now. Elise Stefanik will be a firebrand at the United Nations. She already told Isaac Herzog in a meeting this morning that she'll have Israel's back there. We didn't expect otherwise but always good to hear that if you're within the Israeli government in a very problematic

institution like the UN. By the way, Marco Rubio told us last Tuesday at Donald Trump's watch party on election night that he would, with the Republicans taking over the Senate, not knowing then that he would be nominated likely for Secretary of State, he said that the Republican Senate

should take up defunding more UN agencies that he feels are either in cahoots with Hamas or turn a blind eye to those terror organizations that operate in Gaza and elsewhere. So Miriam definitely getting her money's worth with, you know, a cabinet that is quite Israel first. So and the... Was he trying to sabotage them? You couldn't have scripted that in a way that would like actually piss off MAGA more. It just kept getting worse. Like none of that MAGA

I'm not a foreign policy here. Old school Republican. Old school Republican. He's like, they're totally from the old school Republican mold. Very, very reassuring. Yeah. Yep. Well, there you go. Mary Madison gave him $100 million. And there were quite a few other donors in that camp, the Bill Ackmans of the world, whatever, who, you know, wanted a certain thing from the foreign policy team. And they certainly got it. They certainly got it. And it's also just...

Marco Rubio surrounds himself with people who actually are genuinely more realist. He's obviously been new right on populist economics. So just being in that category means that his milieu is more new right than it is old right. And he's said some interesting things about Ukraine that have indicated, as we were talking about before, a possible shift.

But clearly, clearly, if that were more evident, if there was much more of a shift, you would not see that. Yeah. The other thing that's worth noting, too, and then we'll move on to the Senate stuff, but this will be a good transition to that.

Rubio is one of the more interesting people in economics. He's more, you know, in terms of economics, he is more clearly in that new right camp, as, of course, is J.D. Vance. Neither one of them will be in the Senate anymore, leaving very few Romanians.

remaining there that have anything other than kind of like old school doctrinaire Republican views. Yeah. So, I mean, that's another significance of pulling him out of that role and putting him into the role where his ideology is the worst. Yeah. There's some people who are on the new right in particular who are now really starting to worry about this because Rubio and Vance were very, very key in that new coalition of at least on the economic front, especially on the economic front.

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Let's talk about the Senate. Put A4 up on the screen. So, MAGA's choice, Trump's choice, Tucker Carlson's choice was Rick Scott, and he got third in terms of Senate majority vote. It was the secret vote.

John Thune ultimately wins with 23 votes. Cornyn got second with 15. Rick Scott comes in third at 13. I'm quite sure if this was not a secret ballot, the results would be very different. But break down some of these dynamics for us, Emily. Yeah, so this was – and Ryan and I talked about this yesterday as the vote was happening. Right. Which was –

It was a mess. I mean, this entire process has been a mess, but Rick Scott for years has been laying the groundwork essentially to step into the vacuum, knowing that McConnell was ailing, which is another thing that was kind of kept quiet for a long time. Yeah.

I was talking to someone last night who works on the Hill and takes pictures on the Hill and was saying basically that McConnell doesn't like to be photographed in his wheelchair. Wow. And he is often in a wheelchair now. So a lot of people in the Senate knew that this was coming. And

Rick Scott saw that, started laying the groundwork for it. Cornyn and Thune are big McConnell allies. So MAGA world, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, I mean, this was like a year ago, maybe less than a year ago, we cannot let Cornyn and Thune take over the Senate after Mitch McConnell leaves. Like he flat out said that. And now, obviously, John Thune has won this race. So conservatives got behind the Rick Scott bid.

like MAGA people got behind the Rick Scott bid, um, because Rick Scott said, agreed with Mike Lee that they needed to do some of these procedural changes to the way the Senate worked. Some of that was like pulling back Harry Reed centralization of power, um, which people could debate the like internal inside baseball Senate mechanisms. But, uh,

It was that. It was also just like come out with a clear plan for your policy goals every year. Like some fairly unobjectionable things, but that Republican leadership is hesitant to do because they don't want to be bossed around by the, what did John McCain say, the like cuckoo birds? Remember this was back in 2014, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't want to be bossed around by people like that. They want to do what they want to do. And so Rick Scott became the very problematic figurehead of what I think is a good movement. Rick Scott has all kinds of corporate baggage. He's all kinds of, like, he's just not a charming spokesman. Like a Medicare fraudster. Yep.

Yep, and not a charming spokesman at all. He doesn't make deals. He's not one of those people. Even there's some MAGA people who you can hate the swamp, and you can still be good at operating. You can still be good at actually negotiating. Rick Scott is not seen as one of those people at all, and for good reason. He's sort of prickly. And so everyone gets behind Rick Scott.

But knowing that Rick Scott doesn't have a shot in hell because people don't really like him that much, MAGA conservatives started to work on John Cornyn and started to try to get concessions out of John Cornyn and say, all right, Cornyn, you know that you need us.

So why don't you just say, or why don't you just give us a little bit of these procedural differences? He became a Kevin McCarthy figure. That's how Kevin McCarthy became Speaker, sort of giving a little to the Freedom Caucus. That's what Mike Lee was asking for. And Cornyn went along with it. Cornyn lost. And it was obviously, I mean, there was sort of splitting the vote between Scott and Cornyn. So I think most people didn't want John Thune, but one of my sources who was working on this

gave a pretty good quote yesterday when I asked basically what happened. How did Thune edge out Cornyn and Scott? The source said, quote, handing out committee assignments like candy and activating K Street. The conference has been clear this person said that they want reforms and expect them. John Thune did not

win by an overwhelming margin. He's edged out corner by five votes. He has a mandate, but barely. He's going to have to shake up the status quo to retain the trust of the conference. So we will see if John Thune feels that pressure and gives in to some of these things like having four weeks of debate before an omnibus, which I think everyone should say like, yeah, that's great. Four weeks of debate before we spend billions of dollars in all of these different ways. It sounds good. Um,

I wouldn't be super optimistic that he'll do that though. Yeah. I mean, from Trump's perspective, I think he just wanted someone who he felt would be guaranteed to do what he wants them to do. Yeah. Absolutely. And he felt the most confident that Rick Scott would be that person.

Like, you know, to try to parse the ideology is a waste of time in a lot of ways because on ideologically, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think the three of these guys have much ideological difference. I mean, Rick Scott is not on the new right. You know, he put out a he put out the Republican policy priorities for the midterm elections that were like a disaster for them because it called for sunsetting every single federal government program, including Social Security and Medicare every what was it, three years or something like that.

And it was an albatross around the necks of Republicans. He's a standard issue Reagan type conservative as far as economics go, as are all three of these. So I think it was more about for Trump, which one do I feel the most confident is going to be the most loyal to me? My guess is...

Looking from the outside at how all of this is going to go is that Trump has such a hold on the party now and has such a clear track record of punishing anyone who crosses him that probably John Thune is going to do whatever Trump wants him to do when Trump decides to wade into these debates. And I think that's the part that maybe separates the three of them is that Trump doesn't always wade into these. So there's a lot you can do.

behind the scenes that he's not really paying that close attention to. And perhaps that's where the difference comes. But on anything that actually is important to Donald Trump, like all three, and the indication to me is all three of these men immediately when Trump was like, I want recess appointments, were like, no problem, we'll do recess appointments, which again is handing a gigantic part of their power over to the executive branch.

Although one point that I think is interesting just as a hypothetical to test is what does John Thune do when Donald Trump, if Donald Trump, we don't know this yet because we don't know much about what he would actually do when it comes to Ukraine, but when Donald Trump wants to test

pair Ukraine funding to a border thing that won't get through, or when Donald Trump wants to actually force Ukraine to the table and the aid becomes conditional or something like that. John Thune is a McConnell ally. He is, and Mitch McConnell's still in the Senate, and Mitch McConnell is tied into the donor class that is deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply supportive of Zelensky and Ukraine, and that is their red line.

And I'm genuinely, I think it's a pretty interesting hypothetical. I agree that I think John Thune will go along with a lot of the Trump agenda, but there are certain things that are such red lines for the donor class. We don't know if Trump will test those boundaries, but if he does,

I actually wonder what would happen. I don't know because John Thune is so deeply enmeshed in K Street, the donor class, McConnell world, the old school Republican Party, and their red lines are so bright. Let's say Donald Trump decides to do something heterodox in Ukraine. Maybe he would do something weird on Israel. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard does something that they find objectionable. These are all just random hypotheticals. And if they happened, I don't know that...

Thune might put up a fight because he's just so entangled with McConnell world. So we'll see. But I think generally I agree that he'll be pretty, what's the best word, compliant. Yes, pliable. Pliable. Yes. All right. Let's also, so we don't have to play this out, but it is worth noting, this is A5, you don't have to play it though, that he did say he's going to keep the filibuster in place.

We'll see if that maintains, but that's the current positioning. I imagine there may be some pressure to get rid of that. But there's also a lot of mechanisms you can use, like budget reconciliation that allows you to get through what you want using majority vote. You know, Democrats did some of that when they were in office, but they also would be like, oh, the parliamentarian said we couldn't do blah, blah, blah. I don't think that the Republicans will have that same like, oh, the rules, the parliamentarian ruled we can't do. So there's still a lot they can get done with it.

53 seat majority. They're pushing reconciliation right away. That has to be first 100 days, pass the priorities through reconciliation, border priorities, put it all in there. So that'll definitely happen. Absolutely. The other thing that David Sirota always with his eye on the ball, you guys should be subscribing to Lever News because they do great work. I don't care where you are on the ideological spectrum. Put this up on the screen. Thune is like an actual lobbyist.

Like that was his profession before he was in the Senate. Yeah, he was a lobbyist. And Sirota says less than two years after the East Palestine disaster, Republicans have now made their new leader a former railroad lobbyist who helped block rail safety legislation. So he is a swamp creature. I don't think there is any denying that.

He was the problem on that J.D. Vance Sherrod Brown bill. John Thune was hugely problematic. What's the phrase? Gumming up the works for that bill. Gotcha.

The other thing, last piece and then we'll get to Trump's meeting with Biden, is that this is indicative of how I think most of this is going to operate on the Hill, whether it's people who were at some point adversarial to different Donald Trump priorities. Trump has cemented his full control of this party. Congressman Troy Neils had a memorable quote about this. Let's take a listen. There's no question he's the leader of our party. So now he's got a mission statement, his mission is

and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word. If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. Okay. Sure.

I mean, that's that's whatever his goals are. Doesn't matter. It's what a lot of the MAGA base wants. It's exactly what the MAGA base wants to hear. And it's a great reminder that there is no MAGA without Donald Trump, meaning he is the ideology. And, you know, normally what you would say is whatever, you know, is what the Tea Party wants. That's what we want. You know, it's different when you're saying when this one individual wants. That's what we want. He is the ideology of MAGA.

Yeah, I mean, this is yeah, that's exactly right. And so it's a very honest statement. And while others would have too much shame to say it quite as overtly as this gentleman did, that is that is the operating sentiment among the vast majority of the Republican Party at this point.

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The official website for deals. To find out more, Toyota, let's go places. Interesting meeting that happened yesterday between the current president and the once and future president. We can go ahead and take a look at this. Joe Biden meeting with Donald Trump there. Fireplace a blazing in the background and seemed quite friendly. Trump enjoying himself, certainly. Look at Joe Biden, man. Big old smile on his face. Seems friendly.

Happy and relaxed. There's a photo op afterwards everybody getting together for a nice nice picture What you fire is a metaphor right crystal because if we go back and we look higher of that relationship right burning right? Burning bright burning furious. I know we're gonna have a also if you're if you're watching this we're gonna play the video of Obama and Trump's meeting which was so much colder and literally must have been colder because there was no fire. That's right in that same fire

That's so true.

This makes me so mad because you were calling Trump a fascist, the end of democracy. He was being compared to Nazis. He was saying, you know, you were pushing the story about how he wanted generals like Hitler. The DNC projected that onto Madison Square Garden. So now you're welcoming him with this beautiful, warm fire and a friendly smile that is just as warm as the fire into the Oval Office and acting like it's business as usual. Feels like

you were just messing with us to get our votes. Yeah, well, that's a thing to be enraged about whether you're on the right or the left, because from my perspective, Donald Trump

does have a fascist ideology and attempts to operate as such. And Joe Biden is the person, I mean, in a way it's perfect because Joe Biden is the person most approximately responsible for ushering Donald Trump back into the White House. So why shouldn't it be more friendly? His ass should have gotten out after one term and there should have been a Democratic primary and a Democratic process. And instead, even as he was so addled that he was unable to even host like a

leadership meeting of congressional Democrats without Nancy Pelosi having to rush in and save him because he forgot where he was and what he was even supposed to be doing. He still was so arrogant that he thought he

He needed to run again and have another four year term in the White House, even though it's preposterous that he's even the president right now, given his condition. So in a sense, it's like, yeah, this is kind of perfect because you are the person who helped get this man right back where he was before, even though your previous stated goal and what you thought was going to be your legacy was the one thing that Joe Biden wanted.

was nominated by Democrats to do in 2020 was to end the Trump era. And instead, you have extended it. So hey, there you go, enjoying the fruits of your labor, Joe Biden. Great work. Totally. And I'm loving the memes that Brandon is like a secret Trump supporter, right? This has all been- He does look happy. It's an elaborate ruse. He does look happy. It's like when he put the Trump hat on. And I don't-

I don't think he understands because his brain doesn't function that like he thinks he's been proven right by the fact that Kamala lost. Yes. He thinks people are looking at this because I'm sure this is what his aides are telling him and his wife and whoever, Hunter, that, oh, you would have won, Pops. You would have done it. And everybody sees that now. Everybody regrets that they didn't keep you. No.

The reality is, as the Pod Save dudes revealed, you are headed to a 400 electoral college vote loss. Like a dramatic...

sweeping. Right now, it's like, okay, they lost every battleground. It was close. It was like a couple hundred thousand votes. All right, we can get back in it, blah, blah, blah. We held on to most of our Senate swing state seats outside of Bob Casey. Like, okay. But if it was 400 electoral college votes, you're talking a super majority in the Senate, very likely. You're talking massive House margins. You're talking like just it's over. It's over, over, over. Just to show you the contrast with the Obama-Trump visit, which I think also is just...

Symbolic, too, of this isn't Trump's first time in Washington. Like, this is normal now, and there are a lot of young Americans for whom, you know, in terms of their cognizant life, the Trump era is really all they know. So let's take a look at the very different vibe of Obama and Trump together during that transition. Most of all, I want to emphasize to you, Ms. President-elect, that we now are going to—

We want to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then the country succeeds. Please, sir. Well, thank you very much, President Obama. This was a meeting that was going to last for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and we were just going to get to know each other. We had never met each other. I have great respect. The meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half.

And it could have, as far as I'm concerned, it could have gone on for a lot longer. We really, we discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel.

So anyway, no fire blazing there. Very obviously much different body language for those who read into all of those things and the vibe, very different. And I like your point that for a lot of young Americans this is perfectly normal now. And for the last 10 years now, this is...

Donald Trump has been normalized. Yeah, this is politics in America now. The host of the Celebrity Apprentice— I will never get numb to the host of the Celebrity Apprentice being the president— going straight from the Celebrity Apprentice to the president of the United States, partially because Democrats insisted on Hillary Clinton and then insisted on Joe Biden.

Yeah. And I think, you know, of the many takeaways and autopsies and whatever, it's not maybe the most important point, but one important point is like this is the era that we're living in. And so just now trying some blow dried like Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom or whatever and thinking that's going to be the answer to your prayers. Blow dried. Yeah.

True, right? You know what I mean by that? Well coiffed. Yeah, I mean like that very like buttoned up politician-y, like very smooth on Fox News or whatever that liberals fall in love with. But, you know, Trump is obnoxious.

and divisive and he puts on a show and he goes out there and rants and raves about, you know, people's dick size and Hannibal Lecter and whatever. By the way, nobody has talked about how Hannibal Lecter, nobody's talked about him for attorney general. And nobody's talked about how he's the big winner of this election cycle. Because I remember a couple of months ago, NPR did like a half hour long show about how weird it was that Donald Trump was using this in every rally. Of course it was weird, but like,

Who cares? In the scheme of things. And Democrats are still out there like, let me focus group test my way. Like, do you watch this man? Yeah. Do you see what he does?

that he went, oh, Hannibal Lecter focus groups. Well, no, no, that is not how politics works, at least not in this era. So, you know, take some take some cues here. Learn some lessons. Yeah. And just the last thought on all of this is I blamed Democrats for like their failures and allowing the host of Celebrity Apprentice to become president. But it's also Republicans like Donald Trump is right in his diagnosis of a

many, many of the problems in the Republican Party. And because Republicans don't have viable alternatives to Donald Trump, you keep getting Trump too. So it's just...

just, it's the system. We get the system we deserve. We get the culture and the system and everything we deserve. All right. Well, speaking of who's in control and what era we're in, I mean, a lot of ways, this is Elon Musk's era as well. We can put this up on the screen. Apparently, reportedly from a couple of different outlets, there's starting to be some heartburn

Among the Trump staff with Elon Musk's described near constant presence at Mar-a-Lago, one person said he's behaving as if he is a co-president in making sure everyone knows it. There is no indication, though, that Trump himself is irritated with Elon. I mean, it would make sense to I would not be surprised if at some point Trump does get irritated with Elon, especially if he feels like he's

hogging too much of the spotlight, taking too much credit for things that Trump thinks he should be getting credit for, etc. So I could certainly see that break coming. But this reporting suggests more that internally, some of the other people who would be jockeying for position around Trump are pissed off at how much influence Elon has. Is that the way you read it too?

I think it could just be that the sources to NBC are a few people who have been really put off by this. And there are other people who haven't said anything about it. I think that's the case with some of these stories is it gets the temperature of a group of people who are like upset. And then they tell the reporter to talk to their friend who they know is also upset. And then that person sends them to one other person. And it can be limited to a small group of people. Certainly possible. Yeah. Although it's also entirely possible that Elon Musk is.

has turned Donald Trump off or still will turn Donald Trump off because you fly too close to the sun. We've seen it happen with Trump that he really, I mean, J.D. Vance has handled this fairly deftly that like you really do not want to look in any way whatsoever like you were taking credit, like you are the brains behind the operation that infuriates Donald Trump. So it wouldn't surprise

surprise me if that had started to rub Trump or people close to Trump in the wrong way. It also wouldn't surprise me if this was limited to, like, I don't know, Susie Wiles or someone like that and her allies. To me, the way I read these comments, one of the things they said is that Elon's sure taking lots of credit for the president's victory, bragging about America, packing eggs to anyone who will listen, trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him and the president is indebted to no one. I read those comments as someone wanting Trump to see those comments and get pissed off.

Yes, I think that's right. An attempt to try to create that division, which

Probably is inevitable given. Yeah, I mean - I think he goes a narcissist Eventually, there's gonna be some source of conflict I would be surprised if that didn't happen at some point especially with what seems to be right now a very fluid moment in Elon Musk's sort of ideological journey and that after Donald Trump was assassinated like he had been giving significant money we now assassinate yeah attempted assassination still alive still with us very much so that Elon Musk

was formally endorsing him, but we now know he had been giving a lot of money to Ron DeSantis in the past. And so we also know he had been fairly aligned with Democrats in the past. Yeah. No, he previously thought that Trump was completely unacceptable to be in the presidency. And not just because he was like a never-Trump Republican, but because he... I mean, this is a Tesla guy. Like, he...

He has, like, we heard them talking about climate change that one time on the X-Space when Donald Trump, like, it was just a wild, like, total cartoonish conversation that they were having. But, like, they do have some differences. It just seems like Elon Musk in this ideological journey that he's on is like,

becoming more and more ideologically aligned with Trump himself, like Donald Trump as an ideology, like we were just talking about, as like Donald Trump is the ideology of MAGA. It seems like Musk is becoming more and more aligned with that. Even so, though,

he's not fully there. I mean, they don't agree on 100% of the thing. So you could see there being a break for a number of different reasons, or you could see Elon Musk just saying, the stakes are so high, that's why I put literally so much money behind this election. I'm going to go along to get along, and I'll be able to be playing in the little sandbox with Vivek and overseeing what kinds of stuff my competitors might benefit from. I mean, it's just like,

such oligarchic behavior. Absolutely. Just like peak oligarch. I'm going to talk a little bit more about this in my monologue, so I'll save some of my commentary for there. But I just want those of you, my friends on the right, imagine if it was George Soros, who was, we can put this next piece up on the screen. Elon went with Trump to his first post-election meeting with the House Republican Conference. Imagine if Kamala got elected and she had her little George Soros babysitter, her, her

oligarch billionaire babysitter running around with her to all of her important meetings. And there are some rumors, and I think it's appropriate for people to take this also as a sort of threat. We can put the next piece up on the screen that Elon is threatening to fund primary challenges against any House Republican who dares to step out from Trump's agenda.

And I don't know if that rumor is true, but I certainly believe that's the message that is being sent to House and Senate Republicans. You've got the richest man on the planet who has tens of billions of dollars in federal government contractors. His companies are some of the largest contractors.

Pentagon contractors. So he's got a lot of incentive to make sure that, you know, Trump gets his way. And because when Trump gets his way, Elon gets his way. And for him to be there acting as sort of like enforcer and, you know, and threat again, just imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and it was Kamala with George Soros or Bill Gates or whatever billionaire you want to imagine who was like your worst nightmare. You know, no one voted for Elon Musk.

He is not elected, and yet he has this incredibly powerful position and a lot directly at stake, not just in terms of those government contracts, in terms of, hey, what happens with the EV subsidies? How are those managed? Hey, he's got a number of his companies have different regulatory issues with the federal government under investigation from things like labor violations and environmental potential violations. And so he has...

Putting aside any ideological project, which I think he has as well an ideological project, but even putting that aside, he himself has more at risk with federal government contracts and regulation than probably any other person on the planet. I agree with that completely. And we have more at risk as a country from his companies, which in some cases, like SpaceX, this is an amazing company. You turn to Neuralink, I think it's amazing.

I think it's a totally different conversation about the benefits of Neuralink and some of those companies. Now, I would rather have Elon Musk than, to his credit, I would rather have Elon Musk than either like Charles Koch or George Soros, partially because of something he tweeted very early this morning, Crystal, when somebody said, some are calling Elon the George Soros of the right. That's not really accurate. He's more like 44 George Soros of the right alongside their two net worths juxtaposed. And based on their giving and their influence in

this election in particular. There really is no, Kamala has plenty of billionaires backing her. I don't want to, you know, make it seem like she doesn't. But there is really no parallel for the level of influence and infiltration of Elon Musk with the Trump campaign. So Musk responded to that tweet at 1.15 a.m. and said, more accurate would be that I'm, quote, George Soros of the middle. I don't want the pendulum to swing too far right, but right now it's just too far left. I

And like this is a guy who, you know, a couple of hours later was, quote, tweeting Glenn Greenwald. He's just I like to again, to his credit, I find him to be a genuinely interesting ideological figure. I find him to be objectionable as an oligarch and someone who's like clearly using his business empire to, I would say, influence public policy beyond the bounds of what's fair and just. But yeah, at the same time, at least he's being honest.

about it, whereas we throw awards at the Kochs and George Soros and honor them for their influence over public policy instead of being like, well, this is corrupt. Another thing that is going to be interesting is if Trump is less hawkish vis-a-vis China this time around because Elon has massive financial interests involved.

and, you know, good relationships with the Chinese government. So, you know, from my perspective, that could be a benefit of Elon having, you know, if I'm, again, I object to the oligarch babysitter concept out of principle, but that doesn't mean that there might be some areas where I'm like, okay, well, that's actually better if we're not trying to start a war with China right now. And I know this isn't any conservative's priority, but just on the question of principle, like if you're somebody that's upset about, uh,

electric vehicles, you know, and you don't like electric vehicles and you think that the government has been unduly subsidizing electric vehicles and you think that that's green corruption. Elon Musk is the man behind that. Like he's been the architect of that with Tesla and Donald Trump has changed his position on electric vehicles.

Because of Elon Musk. Just that, despite Elon Musk. And this is, again, the difference between Trump and Elon is like, or the difference between Trump and Elon and other politicians is Trump has come out and said he's literally changed his position on electric vehicles because Elon's been giving him a lot of money and support. Yeah.

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