Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an
Speaker 3: amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal
Speaker 3: and dat we do?
Speaker 2: Washington just got very interesting whole showdown much Yeah, potential
Speaker 2: government shutdown?
Speaker 4: What is trump thing? A lot going on.
Speaker 2: Justine's going to join us to break down all of
Speaker 2: the madness and try to figure out where we are
Speaker 2: and what might happen next to the best of any.
Speaker 4: Of our ability. We also have an update.
Speaker 2: So the House apparently secretly voted to release that Matt
Speaker 2: Gates ethics report, so we've got Matt Gate's response, why
Speaker 2: did they do it?
Speaker 4: What do we expect to learn? Break all of that
Speaker 4: down for you.
Speaker 2: We also have a new healthcare whistleblower coming forward at
Speaker 2: the same time that Kathy Hochel is setting up a
Speaker 2: potential hotline for any CEOs who feel threatened out there,
Speaker 2: so a lot of response there. We've got some new
Speaker 2: details that have been revealed as part of a lawsuit
Speaker 2: against a bunch of elite universities, including some Ivy League universities,
Speaker 2: showing just how much preference they give to particularly wealthy
Speaker 2: and well connected students. Some of these details are absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: We also have some of the first numbers post affirmative
Speaker 2: action of minority enrollment how that's been impacted by the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court ending affirmative action at these schools.
Speaker 4: So that's interesting as well.
Speaker 2: And we've got some interesting comments on the theovone podcast
Speaker 2: from Timothy Shallomey about how Bernie Sanders is a folk hero.
Speaker 4: Interesting moment there.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I listened to the hire thing the game day,
Speaker 3: Shallow May.
Speaker 1: That's not the real shame. I've discovered. I had no idea.
Speaker 3: Shalla May is a full on theater kid from like
Speaker 3: the Upper East Side or whatever in New York.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 4: Really, I don't know anything about him.
Speaker 3: He was on college game day and he like had
Speaker 3: By the way, I don't watch college football. All my
Speaker 3: football friends are telling me. They're like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: Scharlamy was amazing. He made all of these correct picks.
Speaker 3: It's pretty clear somebody coached him about it, because then
Speaker 3: when he was on theo Von, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this kid is like a full on theater.
Speaker 2: By the way, I had sports and theater soccer. Don't
Speaker 2: him tread sales look shallow?
Speaker 3: May I'm just saying, I'm pretty sure that you were
Speaker 3: trained for that game day segment. And look, he's an
Speaker 3: incredible actor. He's one of my favorite actors in the
Speaker 3: up and coms, So.
Speaker 4: He could pull it off if he was coached.
Speaker 3: To absolutely no play the part, and in my opinion,
Speaker 3: he was acting whenever he was on game day.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: I will say he's still an interesting guy. He's a
Speaker 3: little lit, soft spoken and all that. But I didn't
Speaker 3: know that much about him, about his background and everything.
Speaker 3: And he's like, yeah, I went to Columbia and I
Speaker 3: was a theater kid in New York and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: that was interesting. Anyway, he is a better actor. He's
Speaker 3: definitely who's that of the young guy who's coming up
Speaker 3: right now? A lordie, He's a better actor than him.
Speaker 1: For sure. Women would probably disagree with me.
Speaker 3: But anyway, let's get to Jeff Stein and let's talk
Speaker 3: about all of this government chef down situation. Joining us now,
Speaker 3: Jeff Stein of the Washington Post, great friend of the show.
Speaker 3: Good to see you, sir, Thanks for joining.
Speaker 7: Us, Thanks for having me back on guys.
Speaker 3: Absolutely all right, So Jeff's let's break some of this down. Man.
Speaker 3: It's been a wild turn of events. First, there was
Speaker 3: a Continuing Resolution that was a bipartisan deal that was negotiated.
Speaker 3: Elon Musk takes to Twitter. He starts criticizing the deal,
Speaker 3: so does a fake Ramaswami, jd Vance, Donald Trump all
Speaker 3: start to jump in, and it appears that Elon's threat
Speaker 3: to primary those House individuals who did vote for the
Speaker 3: CR appears to have been at least contributed to its downfall.
Speaker 3: That's what Fox News is reporting. At least, let's take
Speaker 3: a listen to that. We'll get your reaction.
Speaker 6: Tweets from Mosco and has that complicated this well.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think that there's always a lot of.
Speaker 8: Interest in what's happening up here, and.
Speaker 1: This is more than interists. They're telling people if they
Speaker 1: vote yes, they should be voted out.
Speaker 7: In the social media world. Is a part of our politics,
Speaker 7: and I think members have to expect that, and there'll
Speaker 7: be a lot of part votes the next couple of years.
Speaker 4: The fact is is that, look, this is a sandwich.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to say that we're being forced
Speaker 4: into this position. They could have done a standalone.
Speaker 2: They did this because they knew that it would put
Speaker 2: members in this position to support it.
Speaker 4: We're damned if we do. We're damned if we don't.
Speaker 6: Now, the bill has about one hundred billion dollars in
Speaker 6: disaster relief, nearly thirty billion to restock FEMA's coffers, and
Speaker 6: there are lots of healthcare provisions. Jamming everything together in
Speaker 6: one bill means some Republicans will not support Mike Johnson
Speaker 6: for Speaker in January.
Speaker 8: Have any other of.
Speaker 1: Your colleaguescept that they're not voting for Johnson in the express.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I've talked to a few.
Speaker 5: You know, if you don't seem like they're going to
Speaker 5: vote for him, you have to ask them, I'm not
Speaker 5: going to betray based position.
Speaker 4: Well you just vote president, or will you vote someone
Speaker 4: else's vote.
Speaker 7: For somebody else?
Speaker 3: So, Jeff, there's been a real they've roiled on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 3: It's now Thursday morning, while we're all talking. The government
Speaker 3: shuts down tomorrow at midnight. People thought that this deal
Speaker 3: was done, it was dusted, it was sailing to a vote,
Speaker 3: and yet now we're at a completely new reset.
Speaker 1: So tell us what you know.
Speaker 5: Elon Musk is quite possibly the most powerful person in Washington.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump obviously is the source of his power, but
Speaker 5: Trump has a million things going on in Musk seems
Speaker 5: really dialed in on these kinds of spending fights and
Speaker 5: has huge remit to sort of tell the Republican Party
Speaker 5: what to do on behalf of Trump.
Speaker 7: And you know, it's the money for sure.
Speaker 5: I mean, as you were saying, Musk has been threatening
Speaker 5: primary challenges against Republicans who are out of stack with
Speaker 5: what he and Trump.
Speaker 7: But I think it's it's more than that.
Speaker 5: You know, when I talk to Republican lawmakers, they they
Speaker 5: like the idea of being retweeted by Musk is as
Speaker 5: silly as that might sound as a reason for how
Speaker 5: to govern, they want to be in his sort of aura.
Speaker 5: They feel that he has a sort of a popularity
Speaker 5: and a vision that they want to be associated with.
Speaker 5: Someone was like comparing it to high school to me,
Speaker 5: where Musk is like the cool kid and people want
Speaker 5: to be at his table, and no Republican wants to
Speaker 5: stand out of that of that mix if you want
Speaker 5: to have a political future. And it's more than just
Speaker 5: than that too, I mean it's it's you know, Musk is.
Speaker 7: Really sort of assuming control for the Trump administration coming
Speaker 7: Trump administration.
Speaker 5: Over spending in regulation, which is a huge thing. I
Speaker 5: mean pretty much everything.
Speaker 7: Yeah, pretty much everything exactly.
Speaker 5: And for members, right, if you want you know, this project.
Speaker 7: For your district and your constituents.
Speaker 5: You kind of need Elon Musk at this point to
Speaker 5: be on your side. So the stakes for them are
Speaker 5: existential and go beyond even the fear of a Republican
Speaker 5: primary challenge. And you know, did voters in November were
Speaker 5: they upset about high grocery prices or did they want
Speaker 5: the world's richest man to have discretion over the federal budget.
Speaker 5: I mean that seems to be the question that you
Speaker 5: know Democrats are trying to push this morning, but I
Speaker 5: think it's a legitimate one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have some of that A two please we
Speaker 3: can put on the screen just to give a taste
Speaker 3: of some of the democratic reactions. So initially you had
Speaker 3: Elon saying that we should shut down the government until
Speaker 3: January twentieth, that'd be approximately thirty three days.
Speaker 1: We then got some more reactions.
Speaker 3: If we continue here with some of these images showing you,
Speaker 3: he says, any member of the House of the Senate
Speaker 3: who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be
Speaker 3: voted out in two years. What's even more interesting, though, Jeff,
Speaker 3: is the plot twist that then Donald Trump has added,
Speaker 3: so can we put a three please up on the screen,
Speaker 3: because this makes things even crazier.
Speaker 1: And this is from JD.
Speaker 3: Vance, which was tweeted out as a statement from President
Speaker 3: elect Trump and Vice President Like Vance, they talk about
Speaker 3: the most foolish, inept thing ever done by Congressional Republicans
Speaker 3: was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. It was a mistake and is now
Speaker 3: something they must be addressed. Meanwhile, Congress is considering another
Speaker 3: spending bill. The bill would make it easier to hide
Speaker 3: the records of the January sixth Committe, which accomplished nothing.
Speaker 3: The bill would give Congress a pay increase while Americans
Speaker 3: are struggling this Christmas. Let's go to the next slide, please,
Speaker 3: Because he says, increasing the debt ceiling is not great,
Speaker 3: but we'd rather do it now on Biden's watch. So
Speaker 3: he continues, He says, Republicans must get smart and tough.
Speaker 3: If Democrats tarting to shut down the government unless we
Speaker 3: give them everything they want, call their bluff. It is
Speaker 3: Schumer and Biden who are holding up aid to our
Speaker 3: farmers and disaster relief. So now I think we have
Speaker 3: three separate that are going on. There's a fight over
Speaker 3: the disaster relief, there's a fight over the ten billion
Speaker 3: dollars to farmers, and now Donald Trump is saying, no, Republicans,
Speaker 3: you don't even vote for quote unquote clean cr. First,
Speaker 3: maybe explain what a clean cr is. You only do
Speaker 3: it if we also attach a raise to the debt ceiling.
Speaker 3: So that adds another layer of what must get done
Speaker 3: in the next forty eight hours.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, we are facing a government shutdown. Musk
Speaker 5: seems to not be that alarmed by the prospect. I mean,
Speaker 5: the thing that I'm trying to figure out and calling sources,
Speaker 5: you know, yesterday and today I can't really wrap my
Speaker 5: head around, is why did Johnson not call Elon and
Speaker 5: Trump and say, like, hey, man, like here's my plan.
Speaker 5: Are you going to go nuclear on me in public
Speaker 5: and like embarrass me and potentially cost my speaker shit?
Speaker 5: And I want to be very careful about how I
Speaker 5: phrased this because I don't have the like fully confirmed.
Speaker 7: But the the.
Speaker 5: Thing that lawmakers and aids on the Hill and some
Speaker 5: people close to mar A Lago are telling me is
Speaker 5: that Johnson thought, maybe incorrectly, but he thought that Trump
Speaker 5: had his back.
Speaker 7: Yes, as you were.
Speaker 5: Saying, right, like the cr right is just the idea
Speaker 5: that we will basically just extend funding for the government
Speaker 5: without much attached.
Speaker 7: And that's how you get this this idea.
Speaker 5: Separately, you have this idea of an omnibus, which, like you,
Speaker 5: include a lot of different spending changes to the law.
Speaker 5: Now for Hill speak that nobody but like three nerds
Speaker 5: of Washington should ever have to hear.
Speaker 7: They're calling it a cromnibus.
Speaker 5: Which is the CR plus an omnibus, so Johnson that
Speaker 5: that sort of reflects what Johnson was trying to do
Speaker 5: here because he knew he was going to lose a
Speaker 5: lot of Republicans, you know, for to get this spending
Speaker 5: bill done, he included a bunch of stuff that Democrats wanted.
Speaker 7: And the but the fact that.
Speaker 5: Nobody that Johnson was unable to have a conversation with
Speaker 5: Elon have conversation with Trump, like what are they talking
Speaker 5: about when they go to like the wrestling match and
Speaker 5: like hang out.
Speaker 3: You're exactly right, they were literally together explicable to me.
Speaker 5: And the fact that Trump is just so willing to
Speaker 5: say to Mike Johnson, who he's been photographed hanging out
Speaker 5: with all the time, like no, like you eat shit now, dude,
Speaker 5: Like that's you're you're in your on your own is
Speaker 5: kind of red taking me. I Mean, it either suggests
Speaker 5: that Trump is just willing to like screw this guy
Speaker 5: who's been one of his most sward allies, or that
Speaker 5: Johnson is a spectacular spectacularly inapt house speaker who could
Speaker 5: not foresee the most obvious outcome from a mile away.
Speaker 5: I mean, I've been hearing from Trump people who wanted
Speaker 5: to kill this deal for a long time and thought
Speaker 5: that they could get you on board. Even the defense
Speaker 5: bill they passed, you know, a roughly one trillion dollar
Speaker 5: annual defense bill which I think you guys covered ten
Speaker 5: trillion dollars in defense spending over the next decade, which
Speaker 5: Emil has talked about the DoD budget being too big.
Speaker 5: And you know this whole time I was watching that fight,
Speaker 5: I was like, where is Elon right? Because he could
Speaker 5: have done to that bill what he did to this bill.
Speaker 5: It seems like maybe he just like wasn't paying attention
Speaker 5: enough to do that. But whatever the case, I mean,
Speaker 5: this is you know, it suggests that we're going to
Speaker 5: be in for a very complicated few years if the
Speaker 5: coordination problems this early between Republican leadership and mar A
Speaker 5: Lago are are this.
Speaker 2: Bad and some real power struggles ultimately between the richest
Speaker 2: man on the planet, who has his own base of
Speaker 2: support and plenty of wealth to throw around in terms
Speaker 2: of primary challenges, et cetera, and who controls Twitter, you know,
Speaker 2: controls this huge social media platform and can use it
Speaker 2: to push whatever message he wants to push, which you
Speaker 2: know has been in recent months the same message that
Speaker 2: Trump wants to push, but it really does set up
Speaker 2: this titanic clash of two power centers between Donald Trump
Speaker 2: and Elon Musk.
Speaker 4: Let's put a four up on the screen.
Speaker 2: We have some commentary from Trump specifically which I want
Speaker 2: to get you to weigh in on what I just
Speaker 2: said about the power centers. But also I want to
Speaker 2: understand more why Trump is focused on the debt limit
Speaker 2: at this time as well. So this is from truth social.
Speaker 2: He says, if Republicans try to pass a clean continuing
Speaker 2: resolution without all of the Democrat bells and whistles, that
Speaker 2: will be so destructive to our country. All it will
Speaker 2: do after January twenty is bring the mess of the
Speaker 2: debt limit into the Trump administration rather that allowing it
Speaker 2: to take place in the Biden administration. Any Republican that
Speaker 2: would be so stupid as to do this should and
Speaker 2: will be primaried. Everything should be done in fully negotiate
Speaker 2: part of my taking office on January twenty, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is deeply confusing to me because it
Speaker 2: seems like he's almost advocating for the cr that Elon
Speaker 2: just completely tanked. And obviously this piece about the debt life.
Speaker 2: It is very important to him. He keeps bringing it up.
Speaker 2: So why is that so significant? What do you make
Speaker 2: of this whatever Donald Trump is trying to say here?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think what Trump is saying, right, Obviously,
Speaker 5: there's not to get too into Washington speak, but there's
Speaker 5: like two key things, as you guys understand, right, there's
Speaker 5: the funding of the federal government all the government services.
Speaker 5: And then there's a separate question about the US borrowing limit,
Speaker 5: which is the debt ceiling, which basically stipulates that, you know,
Speaker 5: the government can only borrow up to I don't know
Speaker 5: exactly what it is now, but let's say like thirty
Speaker 5: seven trillion dollars, and beyond that it becomes illegal for
Speaker 5: the government to do that, which means that we become
Speaker 5: very quickly in the fault of our obligations, which could
Speaker 5: cause a global financial crisis. Trump is saying, like, let's
Speaker 5: let's make sure that that bomb, that second bomb, is
Speaker 5: not on the table, Like, I don't want to have
Speaker 5: to deal with this at all during my administration. I
Speaker 5: think he knows that if they don't deal with it now,
Speaker 5: he's going to have to figure out either a how
Speaker 5: to deal with Themocrats, to give Democrats concessions to prevent
Speaker 5: the global economy from blowing up under his watch, or
Speaker 5: be he's going to have to keep every Republican on
Speaker 5: board for a debt sealing increase, which is going to
Speaker 5: be really, really hard. So I think it makes sense
Speaker 5: that Trump is like, let's just clear the debts on
Speaker 5: this right now. And I've actually I spoke to Democratic
Speaker 5: Senator Brian Chatz later this week. He was saying, like,
Speaker 5: I would love if Trump did this, because we think
Speaker 5: that this is a huge problem to him. We want
Speaker 5: to be done with it. I think the thing that
Speaker 5: I find most inexplicable about this, or like haven't really
Speaker 5: wrapped my head around, is like the.
Speaker 7: Timing is bizarre.
Speaker 5: Like Trump was elected over a month ago, and we've
Speaker 5: known that the debt sealing is going to be an
Speaker 5: issue this spring for two years. And if Trump had
Speaker 5: said to Mike Johnson, this goes back to sort of
Speaker 5: my point about the baffling like miscommunication here. If Trump
Speaker 5: had just said to Johnson, like put this in the
Speaker 5: CR I don't want to deal with the debt limit.
Speaker 5: We I mean, maybe he did privately, and I just
Speaker 5: don't have the reporting chops to like figure that out.
Speaker 5: But like my sense is that this is a new
Speaker 5: app that Trump is now putting out there, and it
Speaker 5: reflects I think. I mean, I spoke to someone who's
Speaker 5: at mar A Lago yesterday who was saying that, like,
Speaker 5: you guys in the media and you guys in the hill,
Speaker 5: like you don't understand like Trump is like feeling himself,
Speaker 5: like he is so confident he thinks of as this
Speaker 5: guy referred to Trump as like feeling like he's Charlemagne,
Speaker 5: where he's just like this like globe striding, colossal figure,
Speaker 5: like which I mean historically, like he might be remembered
Speaker 5: as as a quite a significant president.
Speaker 7: So he's just like the.
Speaker 5: Cr and the Omnibus and like this is like peasant stuff,
Speaker 5: Like I don't want to be like sucked into this
Speaker 5: boring mess. So like and I get where he's like
Speaker 5: Trump won twice, Like he's just like I don't need
Speaker 5: to spend my days appeasing people in Washington and dealing
Speaker 5: with this like mechanical stuff.
Speaker 7: But it also is like a.
Speaker 5: Huge problem for the function of the federal government if
Speaker 5: he's just going to like barely pay attention in the
Speaker 5: last minute, like throw out complicated, contradicting to.
Speaker 1: Nan, Yeah, here's my theory of what happened.
Speaker 3: So I see this Morning playbook is reporting, and it
Speaker 3: kind of fits with some of.
Speaker 1: The people I spoke to yesterday.
Speaker 3: They're like, Trump, this wasn't on his radar basically at all.
Speaker 3: He didn't particularly care. Elon basically decides to pick a
Speaker 3: fight him and vivek On Doge on the CR.
Speaker 1: Trump wakes up to it.
Speaker 3: He gets kind of backed into a corner because enough
Speaker 3: people have now come out against the CR that it's
Speaker 3: not going to pass no matter what in terms of Republicans,
Speaker 3: including people like John Cornyn. Right, somebody incentive leadership. So
Speaker 3: then Trump is like, okay, well we got to do
Speaker 3: something new. Then a legislative aid down in mar A
Speaker 3: Lago says, by the way, mister President elect, you may
Speaker 3: not know this, but the debt ceiling is up in June.
Speaker 3: Trump hates a debt ceiling, doesn't want to deal with it.
Speaker 3: He especially doesn't want to deal with these Freedom Caucus guys.
Speaker 3: So he's like, okay, let's get a dust now to
Speaker 3: be able to do exactly an he's his tax cut,
Speaker 3: so he sees this and he's like, we need to
Speaker 3: get this shit done. We can't deal with this during reconciliation,
Speaker 3: and so he puts it in right now. As you said,
Speaker 3: you know, very very little has changed, Jeff in the
Speaker 3: last four years. I was definitely assured of more streamlined
Speaker 3: processes and others. But I'm getting a lot of rhymes.
Speaker 3: It hasn't been that long ago since I'd deal with this.
Speaker 5: I do think one thing you put your finger on
Speaker 5: there that I think is really interesting is the idea
Speaker 5: that you know, Musk is operating as an independent power center.
Speaker 5: He yes, that's kind of what that if that is true,
Speaker 5: that suggests that must power doesn't just derive from Trump
Speaker 5: and this notion that these are co presidents and that
Speaker 5: Musk is like actually calling the shots here.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 3: That's kind of what it sounds like to me, right, like, yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you are right, that's that's correct. I don't think that
Speaker 3: the So from what I've been able to tell it
Speaker 3: definitely the Elon tweets, but especially the Vivak stuff attacking
Speaker 3: this that's totally independent, that was never signed off on.
Speaker 1: Remember, a lot of these folks.
Speaker 3: Are not even in the same room Trump is down
Speaker 3: in mar A Lago. Elon is wherever somewhere in the
Speaker 3: globe every once in a while, pops up in the UK,
Speaker 3: San Francisco, et cetera. Vivac is here in Washington. None
Speaker 3: of these people are necessarily coordinating. Allegedly, there is a
Speaker 3: group chat with Mike Johnson, Vivek, and Elon in it.
Speaker 3: Somebody never raised the CR apparently in said group chat.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's a very real chance of
Speaker 1: a shutdown here. What do you think?
Speaker 7: I mean?
Speaker 5: I think it's it's I'm ambivalent a little bit about
Speaker 5: sort of the substantive complaint being made here, because I
Speaker 5: do I do think you talked to you know, average people,
Speaker 5: and it's like members of Congress can't read the bill.
Speaker 7: Before they vote on it.
Speaker 5: It's like seventeen hundred pages and nobody knows what's in
Speaker 5: it before they are expected to support it. It's full
Speaker 5: of things that have nothing to do with keeping the
Speaker 5: government open, like those are you know, to be fair,
Speaker 5: I guess to Musk and Ramaswami like that, that is
Speaker 5: a thing that I think strikes people as a broken process,
Speaker 5: and they're saying like it is time to and that
Speaker 5: broken process at the same time, I mean, there over
Speaker 5: a million government workers who are now at risk of
Speaker 5: having their Christmases and their families Christmas is completely ruined,
Speaker 5: not to mention all the private sector workers who depend
Speaker 5: on it.
Speaker 7: And also the things that.
Speaker 5: Are in here that are objectionable include disaster aide and
Speaker 5: farm made that a lot of people think is important.
Speaker 5: And Musk circulated claims last night about the bill that
Speaker 5: are just patently false. I mean, he said, you know,
Speaker 5: society a report that was saying that the bill includes
Speaker 5: three billion dollars for the new Commanders Stadium in Washington,
Speaker 5: d C.
Speaker 7: This which is not true.
Speaker 5: He said that he circulated report saying that the bill
Speaker 5: has sixty billion dollars for Ukraine, like not true. So
Speaker 5: you know, I hear where they're coming from. But if
Speaker 5: every bit of government legislation is at risk of being
Speaker 5: mischaracterized as it has by Musk and Ramaswami as I
Speaker 5: think they did, and maybe not rama Swami, but must
Speaker 5: did at least in this instance, it's going to be
Speaker 5: hard to pass anything of substance in the next four years.
Speaker 2: It seems to me like perhaps the miscalculation that Johnson
Speaker 2: made is that he correctly perceived that Trump more or
Speaker 2: less didn't care and had given him sort of free
Speaker 2: ring to negotiate what he needs to negotiate. He has
Speaker 2: a very narrow margin in the House in terms of
Speaker 2: House Republicans, knew he was going to have to rely
Speaker 2: on some Democrats. Obviously, Democrats also still control the Senate.
Speaker 2: So he struck the deal he needed to strike in
Speaker 2: order to you know, clear the deck in his language,
Speaker 2: get this taken care of, get the debt limit taken
Speaker 2: care of, and you know, live to fight another day
Speaker 2: and start fresh in the Trump administration. And the miscalculation
Speaker 2: was really not realizing you do kind of have this
Speaker 2: co president situation. So it's not enough to have Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's buy in. It's not enough for Donald Trump to
Speaker 2: be like, sure, whatever, go negotiate whatever you want to negotiate,
Speaker 2: and just make sure that I can come in with
Speaker 2: the government funded and with the debt limit out of
Speaker 2: the way. He didn't realize, guess what, you need to
Speaker 2: also make sure that Elon's going to be cool with this.
Speaker 2: And that seems to me like where the real failure
Speaker 2: and miscalculation here was for Mike Johnson.
Speaker 5: I think that's well put and I think, I mean,
Speaker 5: based on what I'm hearing this morning and.
Speaker 7: Last night, like Johnson could very well be toast.
Speaker 4: I mean, it seems like it.
Speaker 5: I agree, he seems like his days are numbered.
Speaker 4: But who would replace him?
Speaker 2: As always the question, you know, like who can pull
Speaker 2: this caucausy, who does have the support of the full caucus?
Speaker 2: And what are the demands on the future you know,
Speaker 2: potential speaker are going to look like as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it seems like Trump alone could save him at
Speaker 5: this point.
Speaker 7: I get tom Ember is the name that comes up
Speaker 7: a lot.
Speaker 5: I know, you know, you don't have to be a
Speaker 5: member of the House to be speaker, so kind of
Speaker 5: opens up the possibilities.
Speaker 3: Rand Paul just today we're about to cover it, said
Speaker 3: why not just make Elon speaker of the House.
Speaker 1: Maybe it'd be easier. Actually yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7: I mean if he's I mean he basically is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if he was, he would be probably like
Speaker 2: the most powerful speaker in history in a certain sense.
Speaker 2: I mean, outside of the fact that the margin would
Speaker 2: be so narrow. How many seat margin do they have
Speaker 2: now coming into this too next session, especially with Trump
Speaker 2: pulled a few out of the House for his administration,
Speaker 2: Matt Gate's resigning, so will take a while to fill
Speaker 2: that seat, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So it's extremely narrow.
Speaker 2: But I think when Elon says jumped the Republican caucuses,
Speaker 2: pretty clear says how high?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 5: It seems like like the question I've had for the
Speaker 5: last year is, you know, over the last few months,
Speaker 5: I guess is you know, there are so many Republicans
Speaker 5: who resist some of the ambitious goals that Musk and
Speaker 5: Ronoswallomy have set out. Two trillion dollars in spending cuts,
Speaker 5: revamping the DoD, you know, cutting pork barrel, spending out
Speaker 5: for this or that district. The list goes on and on,
Speaker 5: all these regulations that they want to cut, and then
Speaker 5: there's sort of like the it's not really my lane,
Speaker 5: but sort of you know, Patel and you know what
Speaker 5: Trump does with the DOJ and you know what he
Speaker 5: does with the IRS, which you know, those are all questions.
Speaker 7: But this is I think I think it's fair to
Speaker 7: say this is.
Speaker 5: The first sustained barrage of by.
Speaker 7: Musk, his first real sort of flex, his first.
Speaker 5: Test of can you get congressional Republicans to sort of
Speaker 5: listen to you, and it's not entirely Musk. Obviously, like
Speaker 5: conservatives in the House have been a problem for leaderships
Speaker 5: for like over a decade now. So I don't want
Speaker 5: to like say it's it's purely like sweet generous from Musk.
Speaker 5: But I think by any standard, the test we saw,
Speaker 5: really the first test, which we'll set the course of
Speaker 5: the next few years, suggest that Musk is in charge
Speaker 5: and that there is no willingness in the Republican Party
Speaker 5: and ability I'm repeating myself here, but to stand up
Speaker 5: to him and to stand out and put your head
Speaker 5: above the sand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jeff.
Speaker 2: My last question for you is, you know, Elon is
Speaker 2: like a fan of Hoavier Malay and sort of anarcho capitalists.
Speaker 2: He's this very you know, somewhat doctionnaire libertarian outside of
Speaker 2: where he wants his own government goodies, etc. His ideology
Speaker 2: is not the same as what Trump has articulated to
Speaker 2: the country. I mean, Trump has never been like an
Speaker 2: austerity Paul Ryan Republican. One of the reasons he's been
Speaker 2: so successful, for example, is pledging I'm not going to
Speaker 2: touch social Security and medicare. Elon Musk would love to
Speaker 2: cut social Security and medicare. Probably the most clear cut
Speaker 2: example of where there's a real divergence is Trump has
Speaker 2: been pretty consistently in favor of, you know, a very
Speaker 2: aggressive regime of tariffs. Meanwhile, Elon was out tweeting praise
Speaker 2: for Hobvier Malay rolling back.
Speaker 4: Terror in his home country.
Speaker 2: So help people to understand, it's always tricky with Trump
Speaker 2: talking ideology because he doesn't have that firm of an ideology.
Speaker 2: I think Elon is a much more ideological actually figure.
Speaker 2: Where are some of the frictions between Elon's ideology and
Speaker 2: at least what Trump has articulated his ideology to be
Speaker 2: to the American public.
Speaker 5: I think that is one of the most important questions
Speaker 5: that we're going to see play out over the next
Speaker 5: few years. As you're say in Crystal, you know, Trump
Speaker 5: has rose to power in twenty sixteen explicitly saying that
Speaker 5: he would not touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, arguably
Speaker 5: the three most important programs in the federal budget provide
Speaker 5: healthcare and pensions for tens of millions seniors and.
Speaker 7: Other poor people and other people in this country.
Speaker 5: Now, I think in his second term, I'll me choose
Speaker 5: my words carefully here, I get the sense that Trump
Speaker 5: is softening on that a little bit. And what I
Speaker 5: mean by that is Trump has always said that he
Speaker 5: stands for eliminating waste and fraud and abuse in say Medicare,
Speaker 5: social Security, Medicaid. It's really though, of those three, I mean,
Speaker 5: Medicare is kind of the crucial, and there's there's so
Speaker 5: little waste in Social Security because you know, you're just
Speaker 5: sending checks to people for their retirement, very straightforward. Medicare, though,
Speaker 5: is complicated, and there are things in Medicare that people
Speaker 5: that I do not think are sort of out to
Speaker 5: hurt Grandma, that can be sort of revamped or changed,
Speaker 5: or that there can be cost savings. I think what
Speaker 5: Trump seems to be suggesting to want to do to me,
Speaker 5: which I think is an interesting shift from his first term,
Speaker 5: and as you're suggesting, puts him more in line with
Speaker 5: Malay and and Musk, is to say, actually, I'm going
Speaker 5: to propose changes or cuts to Medicare.
Speaker 7: But I will insist that this is just waste, and any.
Speaker 5: Dorky Washington Post reporter that suggests that this is washing,
Speaker 5: that this is Medicare cuts, I'm just gonna yell at
Speaker 5: and be like you are lying about what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: I'm just doing reforms to Medicare that aren't touching the program.
Speaker 5: And adjudicating the question of if that's a cut, if
Speaker 5: that's slashing Medicare is a sort of epistemological like metaphysical
Speaker 5: question that it's hard to get like a very straightforward
Speaker 5: answer to, because legitimate people can have legitimate in different
Speaker 5: different interpretations of what that means. But but some of
Speaker 5: those I mean, we'll have to see what he actually does.
Speaker 5: Some of those programs could, if cut, could lead to,
Speaker 5: you know, to less care for seniors. At the same time,
Speaker 5: there is waste in Medicare, and some of the things
Speaker 5: necessary to do that could just look like waste to
Speaker 5: I think a good faith person trying to reduce the
Speaker 5: federal budget, which is a complicated and nuanced picture and
Speaker 5: one that I think will be impossible to write in
Speaker 5: a story without like millions of people being like, you're
Speaker 5: an idiot who is mischaracterizing things.
Speaker 7: But I think that is sort of a dynamic that's
Speaker 7: shaping up.
Speaker 3: Welcome to our lives there, Jeff. All right, man, we
Speaker 3: appreciate you joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Great to see you.
Speaker 7: I guess.
Speaker 3: At the same time, Democrats are seizing upon all of this,
Speaker 3: and they have one goal. They want to drive a
Speaker 3: wedge between Elon and between Donald Trump. They have now
Speaker 3: taken to the moniker President Musk. You saw the debut
Speaker 3: of this on CNN last night. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: President Musk this morning made it clear, with all his
Speaker 8: vast government experience, which is basically he became rich on
Speaker 8: the federal government, that he doesn't want Republicans to pass this,
Speaker 8: and seemingly Vice President Trump kind of backed him up
Speaker 8: then at that point. And what it says about the
Speaker 8: politics is this is going to be a see four years,
Speaker 8: the whole debt ceiling thing. Donald Trump is making it
Speaker 8: clear that he wants the debt ceiling to go up.
Speaker 8: By the way, the debt ceiling is going to have
Speaker 8: to go up, but he doesn't want to have to
Speaker 8: take ownership for it because he will again for four
Speaker 8: years look at the Democrats and blame them. And so
Speaker 8: what this says about the politics is good luck for
Speaker 8: the next four years. I don't think they'll shut the
Speaker 8: government down because ultimately they'll want to get home for Christmas.
Speaker 8: They'll do like a one month s R. Pretending like
Speaker 8: that's going to fix everything. But yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 8: think President Elon has made it clear what his agenda's
Speaker 8: going to be for the next four years.
Speaker 3: All Right, So that was Adam Kinsser, Democrat, now hilarious.
Speaker 2: But former Republican member of Congress gets familiar with him.
Speaker 2: January sixth Committee Anti Trump et.
Speaker 1: Cetera pro Ukraine. Basically the congressman from the Ukraine lost. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we can continue.
Speaker 3: The point is is that that is now a very
Speaker 3: popular moniker. The Democrats are going with Bernie Sanders, including
Speaker 3: let's put this up there on the screen. Democrats and
Speaker 3: Republicans spent months negotiating a bipartisan agreement to fund our
Speaker 3: government the richest man on earth. President Elon Muss doesn't
Speaker 3: like it. Will Republicans kiss the ring?
Speaker 4: Yes they will.
Speaker 3: Billionaires must not be allowed to run our government. Well,
Speaker 3: our president is going to be billionaires. It's a little
Speaker 3: bit difficult.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it's different.
Speaker 1: He's not a real billiad Is that correct? From JB. Pritzker.
Speaker 4: Well, I think what he means is unelected billionaires.
Speaker 2: It's one thing when you were actually you know, won
Speaker 2: the popular vote and people back to you I don't
Speaker 2: think that they thought that they were voting for Elon
Speaker 2: Musk necessarily.
Speaker 3: See, I don't know about that. We have this poll
Speaker 3: we can discuss. Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 3: Do you approve or disapprove of Elon playing a prominent
Speaker 3: role in Trump administration. This is from Quinnipiac, simple sized,
Speaker 3: nine er and twenty four people to see. Fifty three
Speaker 3: percent disapprove, forty one percent approve.
Speaker 1: I don't know quite yet. I mean, Elon does have.
Speaker 3: A pretty high approval rating with the American people, especially
Speaker 3: with Republicans, so certainly Republican to see what that is.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, he was up there with Bezos
Speaker 3: and the other industrialists for a while in terms of
Speaker 3: the most popular people in the country. It took a
Speaker 3: huge hit obviously after he started getting political. I think
Speaker 3: the big question is not about even like small d
Speaker 3: democratic question around Elon. It's about Trump. There's a huge
Speaker 3: question here about how milong Trump is going to allow this.
Speaker 3: So there's a couple of things that are happening right now.
Speaker 3: Trump seems to have made peace with the Elon stuff
Speaker 3: because he has now decided to make the debt ceiling
Speaker 3: part of his crusade. But look, Trump doesn't care about
Speaker 3: spending and he doesn't care about debt. Okay, you could
Speaker 3: just look at his previous administration if you're curious for
Speaker 3: evidence on that one.
Speaker 1: He doesn't care at all.
Speaker 3: But the thing is is that if he gets backed
Speaker 3: into an unpopular corner, as we've seen a million times,
Speaker 3: he'll drop you. And so if Elon starts to cause
Speaker 3: political problems for Trump, that I could see to be
Speaker 3: a real issue. So, for example, let's say there is
Speaker 3: a shutdown in the next forty eight hours. All of us,
Speaker 3: especially me, we're all getting on airplanes right pretty soon.
Speaker 3: I think fifty some sixty million people are going to
Speaker 3: take a flight in the next two weeks or so.
Speaker 3: You want to know how TSA functions during a shutdown.
Speaker 3: It's not pretty. I've seen it before, So imagine that.
Speaker 3: Imagine we have that, and we have headlines all across
Speaker 3: the country. Not to mention what just happened. Yesterday, the
Speaker 3: S and P five hundred dropped by three points. We
Speaker 3: have the largest ten day, We have the largest daily
Speaker 3: decline in the Dow Jones in the last fifty years.
Speaker 1: Things are not great right now. They're a little precarious.
Speaker 3: We're going into a situation where Dervy I would say,
Speaker 3: let's say we have a government. By the way, government
Speaker 3: shutdown always nukes the doo every single time, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have one thousand point drop another one like that. Let's
Speaker 3: say the S and P drops another eight percent, and
Speaker 3: so you could even have a systemline. We have more
Speaker 3: political chaos around the debt ceiling. That's another couple percent.
Speaker 3: So S and P. Let's say it's down by ten
Speaker 3: percent by January twentieth, the day that Donald Trump takes office.
Speaker 3: As a whole other picture from your nice mandate and
Speaker 3: all these other things, if that.
Speaker 1: Starts to fall on Elon.
Speaker 3: As we know with Trump, nothing's ever his fault, and
Speaker 3: so if this starts to fall in Elon, you could
Speaker 3: have a situation we're on day one of the actual administration,
Speaker 3: there is some sort of split between the two. I
Speaker 3: would not be surprised by that outcome, especially if we
Speaker 3: do go two shot. People hate when the government shuts down,
Speaker 3: you know, and look, I know it's try. Everybody talks
Speaker 3: about it, but like, look, everyone always focused on the
Speaker 3: soldier pay. They usually take care of that. I'm talking about,
Speaker 3: like seniors applying to medicare again get denied TSA. Everybody, Oh,
Speaker 3: now we have six hour lines in the airport. There's
Speaker 3: no FAA problems. By the way, I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: anyone's aware, but we're actually in the middle of a
Speaker 3: presidential transition right now. Good luck with that in terms
Speaker 3: of making sure that if all those people can't come
Speaker 3: to work, it's like, how are they going to leave
Speaker 3: anything in preparation. I know, all of this sounds extremely stupid, like, oh,
Speaker 3: we don't need the government. It's like, yeah, we don't
Speaker 3: need it until you have to go to TSA. You
Speaker 3: have to wait for seven hours.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The thing is part of what they put in this
Speaker 4: bill is disaster relief.
Speaker 2: I mean, people in North China and throughout that whole
Speaker 2: hurricane path were devastated, still recovering, and that need is
Speaker 2: extremely urgent.
Speaker 1: So the same passes. Yet it should have been pass
Speaker 1: day up.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 2: I agree it is nuts, and yet I mean that's
Speaker 2: part of what is entangled in this bill. There's also
Speaker 2: some farming that is incredibly important for farmers because the
Speaker 2: previous farm build ever got passed, so you know, levels
Speaker 2: have been stuck in terms of what they've been counting on,
Speaker 2: So that's important to I just wanted to mention there
Speaker 2: is one provision in here that I actually really support
Speaker 2: and I think you do too, which is the reigning
Speaker 2: in of pharmacy benefit managers.
Speaker 4: That's included in this bill.
Speaker 2: As well, and it's one of the things that you know,
Speaker 2: it gets dried as oh, you just threw in these
Speaker 2: things that I have nothing to do with just funding
Speaker 2: the government, but it also would be actually a really
Speaker 2: good reform that would help to bring down prescription drug
Speaker 2: costs and has a significant amount of bipartisan support. This
Speaker 2: is something that Josh Holly's proposed alongside with Elizabeth Warren
Speaker 2: that is also entangled in this whole thing. So it's
Speaker 2: not just I mean, the federal government shutdown is bad enough,
Speaker 2: that creates a lot of headaches and a lot of problems,
Speaker 2: but there's also funds in here that people are really
Speaker 2: relying on. So you know, the other piece with Elon is,
Speaker 2: I mean, number one is the richest man on the planet,
Speaker 2: Like none of this is ever going to affect him
Speaker 2: or really anybody that he probably knows at this.
Speaker 4: Point in his life.
Speaker 2: The other thing is like he doesn't really know anything
Speaker 2: about the government, is my sense, Like, I don't think
Speaker 2: he really understands how important some of these pieces are.
Speaker 2: I don't think he really knows what it means if
Speaker 2: the federal government shuts down. So it's easy enough for
Speaker 2: him to tweet like and just shut it down until
Speaker 2: Trump comes into office without really having a grasp of
Speaker 2: what the implications of that ultimately are. But to go
Speaker 2: back to this question about the potential drama playing out
Speaker 2: between Elon and Trump, I think your right, suger, And
Speaker 2: the reporting suggests that Trump was cool with this negotiation.
Speaker 2: It actually serves his interest quite well, because he certainly
Speaker 2: doesn't care about the spending at all.
Speaker 4: Whatever, it's fine. It got the debt ceiling out of
Speaker 4: the way.
Speaker 2: He wants to be able to do his tax cuts
Speaker 2: for the rich, extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
Speaker 2: in the new year when he comes into office. You
Speaker 2: need to have the debt ceiling cleared to be able
Speaker 2: to accomplish that. And so it served his interest. All
Speaker 2: of the spending pieces that Republicans could object to, like
Speaker 2: basically get pinned on Oh well, the Democrats were in power.
Speaker 2: It's not our fault, is Like Joe Biden a chucksit
Speaker 2: umor and whoever, it's their fault that they had these
Speaker 2: provisions that maybe a lot of Republicans aren't particularly supportive of.
Speaker 2: And then he can start with the government funded and
Speaker 2: with the debt ceiling out of the way. So he
Speaker 2: really did get back into a corner here. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if he feels that way or not, but
Speaker 2: part of the goal of this calling him President Musket
Speaker 2: c is to irritate Trump and get under his skin
Speaker 2: and threaten his ego. So I think it's one thing
Speaker 2: if this becomes a political problem for him, and it's
Speaker 2: government shutdowns always very unpopular, you get this sense of
Speaker 2: just total chaos already before he's even set foot back
Speaker 2: in the White House.
Speaker 4: That's an issue.
Speaker 2: But the other issue is this is a man who
Speaker 2: has a very fragile ego, and if he feels like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, people think Elon is more powerful than me,
Speaker 2: I don't think he's gonna like that. And we also
Speaker 2: know think about how he in that debate with Kamala,
Speaker 2: think about how he took the bait on literally everything.
Speaker 2: So it's not like he's capable of sort of like
Speaker 2: rising above it. That has never really been a Trump
Speaker 2: strong suit. On the other hand, you know, I think
Speaker 2: ultimately in a battle which Dan Trump and Musk, Trump wins.
Speaker 2: But Elon has his own cards to play because he
Speaker 2: does have so much money and can fund primary challengers,
Speaker 2: and has his own base of support, has his own
Speaker 2: media platform that he controls to his own ends that
Speaker 2: is extremely influential, both in terms of the Republican base
Speaker 2: and in terms of the national conversation and elite media.
Speaker 2: So it's not like he's not that he's without any
Speaker 2: of his own cards to play in this chess match saga.
Speaker 2: One last thing I was thinking about is remember when
Speaker 2: Elon was tweeting about who he wanted what he wanted
Speaker 2: Howard Lutnik for targery. Is that what it was, and
Speaker 2: then it ends up not getting picked for chargery, gets
Speaker 2: put in a commerce. But you know, he was able
Speaker 2: to do that and assert what he wanted for the
Speaker 2: government even though he didn't get his way. There was
Speaker 2: no blowback from Trump on that, and I almost feel
Speaker 2: like that was a kind of like testing of the
Speaker 2: waters of how much he could.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's no question how much.
Speaker 2: He could freelance, and he's sort of sort of like
Speaker 2: a toddler, like pushing the bounds, pushing the bounds, pushing
Speaker 2: the bounds of what he can get away with.
Speaker 3: This is all in Donald Trump's court right now, and
Speaker 3: if it works out, then it's fine, right Because if
Speaker 3: this works out, honestly, it'd be pretty good for Trump.
Speaker 3: If you can get the debt ceiling off the table,
Speaker 3: that's fantastic. You really don't want to deal with that. Well,
Speaker 3: you're in office and you can just focus on your
Speaker 3: tax bill and all that. I have a difficult time
Speaker 3: thinking that will happen. But look, we'll see. I mean,
Speaker 3: this could drag on for probably days. Honestly, Congress could
Speaker 3: be here all the way till Christmas.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't see. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, the other thing is I don't think Democrats are
Speaker 4: in the mood to rescue that.
Speaker 3: No, here's the why would you? Right, because you're letting
Speaker 3: this all play out. If the government shut down, there's
Speaker 3: always a fight about who's responsible, etc. But there's enough
Speaker 3: tweets out there now from Eon shut down. There's enough
Speaker 3: teats out there of Elon being like shut down the
Speaker 3: government right. Yeah, And like I said, in normal times,
Speaker 3: government shutdowns it's kind of a wash people.
Speaker 1: Usually don't like them.
Speaker 3: But I think during Christmas, I think it would really
Speaker 3: the travel stuff, I think could really cause a lot
Speaker 3: of headaches. And you know, by the way, the Biden
Speaker 3: administration has every incentive to make it as painful as possible.
Speaker 3: Because something Obama did which was very smart, even though
Speaker 3: it was all propaganda, is during the twenty thirteen shutdown,
Speaker 3: is even though we didn't have to, they closed all
Speaker 3: the national parks. Even though they didn't have to, they
Speaker 3: started to. They made Americans feel it the shutdown. So
Speaker 3: if you're Biden, you've got thirty one days left in office,
Speaker 3: you're like, screw it, boom. You know, you want to
Speaker 3: tamp down the temperature, or you want to tamp down
Speaker 3: any positive feeling in the country as much as possible.
Speaker 3: And now imagine this, we have an inauguration to plan.
Speaker 3: This entire city is about to get shut down. There's
Speaker 3: a million National Guardsmen and all these other people are
Speaker 3: supposed to descend on this place, and you've got to
Speaker 3: plan all that when people literally aren't even allowed access
Speaker 3: to their email accounts.
Speaker 1: So it could be a complete shit show, is my point.
Speaker 2: You sent this in this morning, Sager David Plovo's Yeah,
Speaker 2: FANTASTICGN campaign is Kamala Harris right. I also, obviously it
Speaker 2: was a very significant strategist for Barack Obama. But anyway,
Speaker 2: he tweeted less it's to get rid of the debt
Speaker 2: ceiling permanently. There should be no dem votes to raise
Speaker 2: it prematurely. Now a lot of talk about mandates, landslides
Speaker 2: and trifectas. Let those claiming absolute power use some of
Speaker 2: it to deal with the debt ceiling next year. And
Speaker 2: I saw Chris Murphy tweeting about this as well, a
Speaker 2: Senators Chris Murphy, and I think this is I think
Speaker 2: there are a lot of Democrats who feel this way
Speaker 2: of like, Okay, you guys want to deal with go ahead,
Speaker 2: be our guest. You all figured this out, because we
Speaker 2: are not going to come and ride to your rescue.
Speaker 2: I think the only thing that would potentially cause Democrats
Speaker 2: to really come back to the table, because they did
Speaker 2: spend a long time negotiating this deal with Mike Johnson,
Speaker 2: ultimately didn't just come out of the ether.
Speaker 4: This has been months in the making.
Speaker 2: But I think the only thing that would really cause
Speaker 2: them to come back to the table would be something
Speaker 2: like getting rid of the debt sealing permanently, which the
Speaker 2: debt sailing is this like archaic, meaningless, stupid thing that
Speaker 2: is only gets used as a hostage taking mechanism at
Speaker 2: this point. So if they could get the debt ceiling
Speaker 2: taken out permanently, that would be worthwhile. But you know,
Speaker 2: I seriously doubt, seriously doubt that austerity minded Republicans are
Speaker 2: going to want to go along with getting rid of
Speaker 2: the debt ceiling for up.
Speaker 3: The alternative is Trump mints the coin, which if anyone
Speaker 3: would do it, he would. He doesn't care about He's
Speaker 3: just like, screw it.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to do it.
Speaker 2: So true, So maybe maybe that's where we're headed, and
Speaker 2: that would that would effectively nuke the debt.
Speaker 1: It would be over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if he meanted, because then once he's done it
Speaker 2: once then everyone will.
Speaker 1: Just be this is what we did.
Speaker 4: It's over.
Speaker 1: This is what we do.
Speaker 3: Talking and speaking of the House of Representatives, let's put
Speaker 3: this up there on the screen. The House Ethics Committee
Speaker 3: has now secretly voted to release the Matt Gates Ethics Report.
Speaker 3: So let's take everybody back in time to November, whenever
Speaker 3: Donald Trump wins the election. He shortly afterwards, makes announcements
Speaker 3: about who are going to get appointed to major cabinet positions.
Speaker 3: One of them is Matt Gates as the Attorney General
Speaker 3: of the United States. Matt Gates resigns from Congress as
Speaker 3: result of this nomination. However, it quickly comes out that
Speaker 3: at the very same time, the House Ethics Committee was
Speaker 3: slated to release a report about Matt Gates involving ethics
Speaker 3: complaints about him and his involvement with young girls and
Speaker 3: even allegedly somebody who was under age, again allegedly. Keep
Speaker 3: in mind, the Department of Justice did investigate this and
Speaker 3: he was never charged. Well, all of this then comes
Speaker 3: full circle when the so called ethics report was allegedly
Speaker 3: going to get released if Gates stayed in the nomination process.
Speaker 3: It appears crystal that he had to drop out as
Speaker 3: a result of that, because multiple Senators said that there
Speaker 3: was no way in hell they were ever going to
Speaker 3: vote for him, and that it would eventually become a
Speaker 3: public circus.
Speaker 1: So he drops out of that.
Speaker 3: So now he is both no longer in Congress and
Speaker 3: no longer an incoming member or at least cabinet administration
Speaker 3: figure in the Trump administration. He has since announced he
Speaker 3: will be taking up a position at One American News,
Speaker 3: where he'll be hosting a primetime show. So, Matt to
Speaker 3: the media game, it's great.
Speaker 4: To have you the lane he should be in to
Speaker 4: be hobsolutely.
Speaker 1: And he's always been good at it. Yeah, let's be
Speaker 1: on a his talented.
Speaker 3: He's good, right, He's got a big he's got a
Speaker 3: lot of people who like him, and at this point
Speaker 3: he's got a big personality exactly, that's what you need
Speaker 3: to be in this game.
Speaker 1: So I have no doubt he'll be successful.
Speaker 3: Now, we thought, okay, stusted ethics report, it's never going
Speaker 3: to come out. They say, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: he's not getting away so free, even though he won't
Speaker 3: be the attorney general, even though he's not even a
Speaker 3: sitting member of Congress, screw him. So basically they are
Speaker 3: still furious with him. Kevin McCarthy, who previously had allegedly
Speaker 3: read this report and had said previously he's like, I've
Speaker 3: read all the reports, I've seen the text messages. That's
Speaker 3: the only reason Matt gatez hates me because Gates was
Speaker 3: one of the people who got McCarthy kicked out. It
Speaker 3: is speculated that McCarthy was behind the scenes encouraging all
Speaker 3: these members of the Ethics Committee, many of whom he
Speaker 3: raised a lot of money for, and he's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: get it out there.
Speaker 1: He's like, screw him. We got to nuke his public reputation.
Speaker 3: So it appears that this is up behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: long campaigned by Kevin McCarthy to try and to get
Speaker 3: this to the front. It has been successful, at least
Speaker 3: in terms of the vote. We haven't gotten the report yet.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I just want to say, for
Speaker 3: all these reports, release all of them, anybody sure, every
Speaker 3: single one?
Speaker 1: That's everybody, invest any.
Speaker 3: Payoffs, every ethics complaint, et cetera. You know, here's the
Speaker 3: thing they don't. This isn't a criminal proceeding. It's not
Speaker 3: about due process. If you're a member of Congress, you
Speaker 3: should be held to a higher standard than the rest
Speaker 3: of us.
Speaker 1: So I'm happy about it.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, No, Kevin McCarthy is gonna hunt Matt Gates
Speaker 2: until the day he dies, right, Like.
Speaker 4: That is pretty clear.
Speaker 2: And I mean there's some really basic just like human
Speaker 2: lessons here too, which is this would not be happening
Speaker 2: if Matt Gates hadn't been.
Speaker 4: Like people hate this guy, Like people in Pocket really.
Speaker 2: Hate this guy because he was he was an asshole
Speaker 2: and they just didn't get along with him.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's really not ideological.
Speaker 2: The only ideological part is like the fight he picked
Speaker 2: against Kevin McCarthy, which even though wasn't really ideological, there
Speaker 2: were some things that he wanted out of that, and
Speaker 2: then he aligned himself with you know, the small group
Speaker 2: that could hold up Kevin mcar these nomination is sent
Speaker 2: to Speaker at the House, So to the extent that
Speaker 2: that was ideological, I guess, but most of this is
Speaker 2: just personality. And so yeah, they took a secret vote.
Speaker 2: This happened apparently a while ago. We're just now learning
Speaker 2: about it, and the report is supposed to be released
Speaker 2: sometime in the coming relatively soon coming weeks. And I
Speaker 2: also think it's pretty clear that you can say Gates,
Speaker 2: who I don't know that he has a lot of shame,
Speaker 2: did not want this to come out because when he
Speaker 2: got the attorney general nomination, originally he didn't have to
Speaker 2: He did not have to resign from Congress.
Speaker 4: That's not a thing you have to do.
Speaker 2: And then not only did he resign, and when he resigned,
Speaker 2: that report was supposed to come out two days later,
Speaker 2: so he did it, like in the nick of time.
Speaker 2: He resigns, and not only does he resign from this term,
Speaker 2: He's like, no, no, I'm just going to resign the
Speaker 2: seat I literally just won re election for. I'm also
Speaker 2: going to resign that seat in also an attempt to
Speaker 2: keep apparently this report from coming out. So you know,
Speaker 2: he there's there are things in here that are clearly
Speaker 2: embarrassing to him that he doesn't want to see the
Speaker 2: light of day. We do have a response from Matt.
Speaker 2: We can put this up on the screen that is,
Speaker 2: it's interesting what he has to say here. I'll just
Speaker 2: read the whole thing and then saga, I get your
Speaker 2: reaction to it, So he says the Biden Garland DOJ
Speaker 2: spent years reviewing allegations I committed various crimes. I was
Speaker 2: charged with nothing fully exonerated, not even campaign finance violation,
Speaker 2: and the people investigating me hated me. Apparently many people do, Matt.
Speaker 2: Then the very witnesses DOJD not credible, were assembled by
Speaker 2: House ethics to repeat their claims absent any cross examination
Speaker 2: or challenge for me or my attorneys. I've had no
Speaker 2: chance to ever confront any accusers. I've never been charged,
Speaker 2: I've never been sued. Instead, House Ethics will reportedly post
Speaker 2: a report online that I have no opportunity to debate
Speaker 2: or rebut as a former member of the body. In
Speaker 2: my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated,
Speaker 2: even some I never dated.
Speaker 4: But who asked.
Speaker 2: I dated several of these women for years. I never
Speaker 2: had sexual contact with someone under eighteen. Any claim that
Speaker 2: I have would be destroyed in court, which is why
Speaker 2: no such claim was ever made in court. My thirties
Speaker 2: were an era of working very hard and playing hard too.
Speaker 2: It's embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank,
Speaker 2: and smoked more than I should have earlier in life.
Speaker 2: I live a different life now, but at least I
Speaker 2: didn't vote for crs that f over the country.
Speaker 4: So there you go. There's his response.
Speaker 2: Of course, the most noteworthy line there is that he
Speaker 2: sent funds to women he dated, and even some he
Speaker 2: never dated, but who.
Speaker 1: I never dated, just who asked?
Speaker 3: Wow, Oh you know that's as guy.
Speaker 4: He's just a nice guys.
Speaker 3: When people come up to me, I always give up money, right,
Speaker 3: that's what you should do. That's goodness of your heart.
Speaker 3: It's the holiday season. You know who amongst us is
Speaker 3: not the son of a Florida scion milionaire.
Speaker 4: It's just whose best friend is in prison for one
Speaker 4: tax I brought.
Speaker 1: Or I don't I don't even remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole this whole thing with the yacht and
Speaker 3: who the guy who was partnered with I think that
Speaker 3: story is too there.
Speaker 1: There he was a victim of blackmail. That was a
Speaker 1: whole other thing.
Speaker 3: Don't forget Matt Gates. His father is very, very wealthy
Speaker 3: and powerful. I think he's a former public official as well.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So one thing is I think part of maybe
Speaker 2: the rationale and why people were compelled to vote for
Speaker 2: this report to come out is because even though he's
Speaker 2: taken his one American news network gig, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: not clear he's done with politics. Yeah, so I think
Speaker 2: it is an attempt also to spike his reputation and
Speaker 2: limit his prospects of coming back in what's going on
Speaker 2: with this Florida Senate seat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that well, that was a big question. And actually
Speaker 1: I don't think he was ever in running for senate.
Speaker 4: Really, because there was some talk about it.
Speaker 1: There was some talk of it.
Speaker 3: It seems that Lara Trump, who is Trump's sister in
Speaker 3: law or sorry, daughter in law, wants the job. That's
Speaker 3: Eric Trump's wife, and she was obviously a major figure
Speaker 3: at the RNC, and so she's got a lot of
Speaker 3: interest in politics. To Florida Resident, to Ronda, Santa's under
Speaker 3: a lot of pressure to a point her it's not
Speaker 3: yet matter. It's not yet clear whether he's going to
Speaker 3: do that. Then there's a big question in about Gates
Speaker 3: in his future. Apparently allegedly been wanting to run for governor,
Speaker 3: so apparently that's something that was there at least after
Speaker 3: DeSantis is gone. So you could see how One America
Speaker 3: could kind of be a bridge thing for him before
Speaker 3: he ran for the governor. But apparently him and Santa
Speaker 3: hate each other. So there's a lot going on here.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it is, but yeah, the Florida
Speaker 3: send a thing. I think Lara Trump will probably get it,
Speaker 3: but we'll see.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would assume he had also been talked
Speaker 2: about for running for the North Carolina.
Speaker 1: I'd yes, that's right, that was previous. But I think
Speaker 1: whoever it was, his name Tom tillis.
Speaker 3: I think he's the one who's I think he's running
Speaker 3: for reelection, so that one's not going to be up,
Speaker 3: and he seems to be playing better with MAGA, and
Speaker 3: I'm probably not going to face a primary, and it's
Speaker 3: just way easier to just get a pointed to a
Speaker 3: seat and then defend that seat in a special election,
Speaker 3: which he almost certainly would win.
Speaker 1: Now the Florida's a red state, so yeah.
Speaker 2: But the other thing is, I think DeSantis maybe a
Speaker 2: little bit has his own eye on that Senate s
Speaker 2: he could appoint a kind of policeholder who's he good live,
Speaker 2: who you know he has an agreement with that they're
Speaker 2: not going to run again.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he would.
Speaker 3: He hates Washington. I mean, he hated being a congressman.
Speaker 3: I don't know why you'd want to be a senator,
Speaker 3: I mean a senator. Yeah, just to stay in the game.
Speaker 3: That'd be the only reason if you if you really
Speaker 3: wanted to. But I mean, by all accounts, he really
Speaker 3: did not like going back.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know. We it'll be it'll be interesting.