Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 4: Good morning to everyone. We have a girl show for
Speaker 4: you today. Soccer is out Where.
Speaker 3: Where is he?
Speaker 1: Crystal Soccer, my little trip down to Austin record a
Speaker 1: couple of podcasts with Lex Friedman and with Matt Shane
Speaker 1: on their podcast. So I'm looking forward to seeing all
Speaker 1: of those, and he will be back here on Monday.
Speaker 1: But very glad as always to have you here with us, Emily.
Speaker 4: Special Blast and when Soccer goes on this honeymoon, everyone
Speaker 4: will get an extra dose.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 1: The Girls Show, yeahke loved, that's right. That is coming
Speaker 1: very soon. In the meantime, we have very much news
Speaker 1: to bring you this.
Speaker 4: Pod morning in America, folks.
Speaker 5: I saw to Ryan make the fascist and furious jokes.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 4: And then someone tweeted, like nine sequels like to come,
Speaker 4: because yes, we're on Fast twenty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right, and many of those sequels are
Speaker 1: coming this morning. So some pretty wild picks that we'll
Speaker 1: go through, some very interesting ones. We're also taking a
Speaker 1: look at Elon's influence on this administration. Some reports that
Speaker 1: the staff is already getting irritated with him because he's
Speaker 1: just like around all the time. So and of course
Speaker 1: there's always jocking for power, and right now Elon appears
Speaker 1: to have Trump's ear, so look into those dynamics as well.
Speaker 1: James Carville absolutely shocking me and saying that, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe that Bernie Sanders had a point. I never would
Speaker 1: have thought that those words would come out of his mouth.
Speaker 1: David Brooks has also said something similar. Wild times we're
Speaker 1: living through here people. At the same time, New York
Speaker 1: Times facing a lot of scrutiny over taking down a
Speaker 1: video because it showed actually the polar opposite of what
Speaker 1: they had originally claimed that it showed and no longer
Speaker 1: served their narrative purpose. Pulled that I'm taking a look
Speaker 1: at the what billionaires want out of the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: and we've got a great guest on on the Democratic
Speaker 1: side to talk about how Democrats failed to appeal to
Speaker 1: young men. So that should be an interesting conversation as.
Speaker 3: Well, hugely interesting conversation.
Speaker 4: And speaking of interesting conversations, Crystal, we are about to
Speaker 4: have one, because we could go ahead and put a
Speaker 4: one up on the screen.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump nominated Matt Gates to be Attorney General of
Speaker 4: the United States yesterday evening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Crystal was celebrating right away.
Speaker 5: She was my cup of tea right here.
Speaker 4: She was like, this is surprisingly refreshing.
Speaker 1: It's something. It was surprising that part was true at
Speaker 1: this part. This Axios report talks about how Republicans were
Speaker 1: stunned and disgusted at Trump picking Matt Gates for Attorney General.
Speaker 1: Now the uh, I think the spin on that would be,
Speaker 1: you know, he's unorthodox on this in that position.
Speaker 5: True, true, he is no doubt about it. But he
Speaker 5: also is just.
Speaker 1: Unrepentant asshole and is probably the most hated figure among
Speaker 1: his colleagues on Capitol Hill. You can back this up
Speaker 1: probably better than I can.
Speaker 4: Yeah, even among Republicans, first of all, even among Republicans,
Speaker 4: as you said, like MAGA type Republicans I was talking
Speaker 4: to one source that's definitely Maga yesterday and it was
Speaker 4: just that's Wirt's described the reaction among types on Capitol
Speaker 4: Hill and on the House side as quote Vieepish, everyone
Speaker 4: was just shocked. And he is to your point, Crystal,
Speaker 4: he's really beloved by the base. Like if you go
Speaker 4: to a Trump evet and Gates is that people love
Speaker 4: Matt Gates who are not like in DC, which you know,
Speaker 4: to most people would be like, oh, that means you're
Speaker 4: doing something right, that's a good thing. But in this case,
Speaker 4: it's because the more you've like interacted with him, the
Speaker 4: more you're like, oh no, no, no, no, Like you were
Speaker 4: just in this for fame and podcasting, and now I
Speaker 4: guess that's turning.
Speaker 1: General definitely the vibe. I have my own like personal
Speaker 1: experience with him. We interviewed him a couple of times
Speaker 1: over Arising. Some of those times were actually even before
Speaker 1: Soccer was there, when it was myself and Buck Sexton
Speaker 1: that was co hosted. And I remember one memorable incident
Speaker 1: in particular where he was quite upset with the te
Speaker 1: selection in the green room and started raging at the
Speaker 1: intern there about how inadequate it was and storming around.
Speaker 1: So that's just kind of the vibe he brings to
Speaker 1: the table.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: I saw some people even like, you know, Matt Stoller
Speaker 1: was like, oh, look at it. He's good on antitrust.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's true, he likes Lenakon. He does
Speaker 1: genuinely have some like outside of the traditional Republican type
Speaker 1: of views. But that also, in my opinion, is definitely
Speaker 1: not why he was put in the job. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a few things that are going on here. I mean,
Speaker 1: Trump says he wants retribution, and Matt Gates is the
Speaker 1: type of guy who will deliver.
Speaker 5: For him in that regard.
Speaker 1: You know, in the first administration, Trump kept asking his
Speaker 1: White House lawyer Don McGann, how can I get the
Speaker 1: Justice Department to do what I wanted to do and
Speaker 1: basically be a tool for me. And the topic came
Speaker 1: up so often according to reporting that also mcgahann, And
Speaker 1: it was someone else who was in the administration at
Speaker 1: that point his name I'm blanking on, wrote a memo
Speaker 1: of like, listen, the Justice Department is supposed to be independent.
Speaker 1: Here is what you can do, Here's what you can't do.
Speaker 1: And it was they made a point of not only
Speaker 1: putting sending this menm to Trump, but also leaking it
Speaker 1: so that there would be a record that they had
Speaker 1: instilled in him, like here are the rules and the boundaries,
Speaker 1: because this was something he was very interested in. What
Speaker 1: he figured out in the first term eventually is that
Speaker 1: even though he couldn't just like call Jeff Sessions or
Speaker 1: whoever was the ag after that and be like, I
Speaker 1: want you to go after this person, that if he
Speaker 1: said something publicly, then if he had someone who was
Speaker 1: sufficiently loyal in that position, they would pick up on, oh,
Speaker 1: he wants me to do X and Y and Z.
Speaker 1: And so John Carey was one of the people I
Speaker 1: don't even even remember what this beef was over at
Speaker 1: this point, but was one of the people that that
Speaker 1: had pissed him off, and so he talked about that publicly.
Speaker 1: The Justice Department started investigating John Carrey Komy was another one,
Speaker 1: of course. So that was how he did that in
Speaker 1: the first administration. This time around, you know, he's got
Speaker 1: a guy who's going to be even more who already
Speaker 1: really knows who Trump would want him to go after.
Speaker 1: The other piece with Matt Gates, and we could put
Speaker 1: this next part up on the screen. That is significant
Speaker 1: to note is he immediately resigned his seat in Congress,
Speaker 1: which is unusual because in two days time, the House
Speaker 1: Ethics Committee was set to vote vote on releasing was
Speaker 1: described as a highly damaging report outlining its investigation into
Speaker 1: Matt Gates, according to multiple sources familiar with that probe,
Speaker 1: so by resigning immediately before that investigation comes out, and
Speaker 1: again this is an investigation from a Republican controlled House,
Speaker 1: he's hoping to short circuit the release of those findings.
Speaker 1: He had previously himself been investigated by the Justice Department
Speaker 1: for potential sex trafficking of a minor. No charges were
Speaker 1: ultimately filed. This investigation is said to be related to
Speaker 1: that line of inquiry and perhaps some others. One of
Speaker 1: his colleagues has accused him. One of his you know,
Speaker 1: Republican colleagues, Senator Mark what's his name?
Speaker 5: I always forget his name.
Speaker 1: Mark, Mark Wayne Mullen, Wayne Mullen, Yes, Mark waynemull That
Speaker 1: last name always serves me for a loop. Anyway, he
Speaker 1: has accused Gates of always like, you know, showing around
Speaker 1: on the House floor pictures of like naked pictures of
Speaker 1: the women that he's sleeping with, and various things of
Speaker 1: that nature. So that's the type of guy we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. And the last thing I'm saying that I
Speaker 1: get your reaction, Emily and see if you agree with
Speaker 1: that or what you think is going on here is.
Speaker 5: There's been a lot.
Speaker 1: Said, of course, about the potential damaging information possible that's
Speaker 1: out there on Matt Gates. In one hand, you know
Speaker 1: that seems like, oh, that could be a problem for
Speaker 1: him with his colleagues. Obviously they don't like him already.
Speaker 1: This report could still come out. You only need one
Speaker 1: Republican on the committee to actually vote for it to
Speaker 1: come out and join the Democrats for there to be
Speaker 1: a majority for it to be released. Could also very
Speaker 1: easily be leaked. But the other piece of that is
Speaker 1: if you're Trump and you know some damaging information about
Speaker 1: Matt Gates, that also gives you an insurance policy that
Speaker 1: this person is going to do exactly what you want
Speaker 1: them to do, or else you have this damaging information
Speaker 1: that you also could very easily release.
Speaker 3: That's a really smart point.
Speaker 4: Actually, I didn't even think about that, because it would
Speaker 4: make sense that Trump would want total compliance in an
Speaker 4: Attorney general role. Obviously, like you said, Gates already kind
Speaker 4: of knows the types of people that Donald Trump would
Speaker 4: want to go after. And this is one of the
Speaker 4: big debates in the Republican world period right now, is
Speaker 4: what to do with Lawfair and a second Trump administration
Speaker 4: because this sort of consensus position is that you have.
Speaker 3: To fight fire with fire.
Speaker 4: So if they're going to go after Donald Trump with
Speaker 4: the fire of their own lawfair, Comy is a really
Speaker 4: good example of this. I mean, I think there were
Speaker 4: some pretty obviously objectionable things.
Speaker 3: Even some people on the left especially agree with that.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was outrageous some of the things that
Speaker 4: James Comy did. So then the debate now on the
Speaker 4: right is whether you have your own James call me right,
Speaker 4: you have you put Camy in here to sort of
Speaker 4: like message who are you going to spy on those
Speaker 4: types of things?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 4: And these questions are like actually very much being debated,
Speaker 4: and Matt Gates comes down on one side of that debate. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And I think you know, Lefong wrote a piece actually
Speaker 4: it's up and unheard this morning about how Matt Gates
Speaker 4: has a I think it was called the Progressive populist
Speaker 4: case for Matt Gates, and I'm reading it like, actually,
Speaker 4: Matt Gates has some really genuinely heterodots, like on Syria,
Speaker 4: on Africa, his policies have been consistent and sort of
Speaker 4: like libertarian foreign policy type things. And then on the
Speaker 4: other hand, he's been so good on Lena Khan, like
Speaker 4: just when nobody else is defending Lena Khan, Matt Gates
Speaker 4: will defend Lina Khan. And it's just like, Okay, all
Speaker 4: of that may be true, but he's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm glad about the only one of those tables saying
Speaker 1: I'm crazy. It's like Trump is not mostly ideological, right,
Speaker 1: and so when if you're trying to parse and think
Speaker 1: that any of these picks are really about ideology, they're not.
Speaker 5: They're about who he thinks.
Speaker 1: For sometimes it's like who he thinks looks the right
Speaker 1: part right and like who you liked on Fox News
Speaker 1: or whatever. And with this one, remember jd Vance during
Speaker 1: the campaign said that the attorney general position was going
Speaker 1: to be one of the most important ones. With this one,
Speaker 1: I think loyalty like having someone who is going to
Speaker 1: be a sick aphant, who is going to do exactly
Speaker 1: what he wants him to do. That is the main
Speaker 1: qualifying position. I don't think had anything to do with
Speaker 1: Matt Gates's position on Lena Khan, because I mean Elon Musk, who.
Speaker 3: Is Although that is relevant at DJ.
Speaker 1: It is relevant at DOJ, But I mean I would
Speaker 1: be shocked if Lena Cohn stays in her job because
Speaker 1: you've got Elon muskho was Trump's biggest funder, and we're
Speaker 1: about to cover how influential he is in all of this.
Speaker 1: He is at war with Lena Khan, as are like
Speaker 1: almost the entirety of the billionaire class, quite a few
Speaker 1: of him who lined up behind Donald Trump. So it
Speaker 1: would be shocking to me if Trump didn't deliver her
Speaker 1: head on a platter for a lot of the big
Speaker 1: donors who are backing him. But you know, the other
Speaker 1: thing I'll say about Matt Gates I'm curious you're read
Speaker 1: on this one too, Emily, is that when this first
Speaker 1: came out, people a lot of people across the political
Speaker 1: spectrum thought like, well, this is just kind.
Speaker 5: Of a ploy.
Speaker 1: Gates is like a sacrificial lamb, yep, to kind of
Speaker 1: like grease the skins so that other nominees make it
Speaker 1: through the Senate more easily because he's so wild and
Speaker 1: out there that Republicans in the Senate can show that
Speaker 1: they have some independence by voting him down and then
Speaker 1: it'll make it easier to get the rest of the
Speaker 1: nominees through. I don't buy that at all. I don't
Speaker 1: buy that at all. I think Trump and there's reporting
Speaker 1: to suggest this now. In fact, I think we might
Speaker 1: have some reporting on this.
Speaker 5: But anyway, right.
Speaker 1: So, Trump is very serious about getting Matt Gates in
Speaker 1: and if he wants a nominee in, and he's going
Speaker 1: to get a nominee in, which is why I always thought,
Speaker 1: you know, the RFK junior getting floated for like you know,
Speaker 1: some cabinet secretary people, I will make it through Senate confirmation.
Speaker 1: Like that doesn't matter. Trump has already gained out how
Speaker 1: he can. Either he can either put people in as
Speaker 1: acting secretaries, as he's done in the past, or the
Speaker 1: real plan appears to be to use recess appointments to
Speaker 1: get anyone through who wouldn't otherwise pass confirmation. And I
Speaker 1: think it's true that Matt Gates would have trouble getting
Speaker 1: through or you know, even this Republican Senate, they have
Speaker 1: a fifty three big forty seven seat majority. But if
Speaker 1: you think of like you know, Lisa Collins or Lisa Murkowski,
Speaker 1: Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, there you go, there's your three.
Speaker 4: Well you just mentioned Mark Wayne Mullin, who's like a conservative.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, I think he's already come out and said
Speaker 1: that Trump knows what he's doing. And so, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, the overwhelming like probably fifty of the fifty
Speaker 1: three senators are likely to back every single one of
Speaker 1: Trump's picks, no.
Speaker 5: Matter how wild they are.
Speaker 1: But it still does put you on the margins with
Speaker 1: Matt Gates where he could get voted down going through
Speaker 1: a Senate confirmation process. But you know, reportedly they already
Speaker 1: have discussed how they're going to get around that and
Speaker 1: circumvent that. So I think you can expect Matt Gates
Speaker 1: to be Attorney General of the United States.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a lot of conversation and conservative circles
Speaker 4: where people, to your point, Crystal, were sort of shocked
Speaker 4: by this and they were like it must be forty chess,
Speaker 4: like this must be a way to get Matt Gates
Speaker 4: to be governor of Florida. So Matt Gates drops out
Speaker 4: of a seat, he becomes governor of Florida, or it's
Speaker 4: like you said, greasing the skids. So if you don't
Speaker 4: want to vote for Matt Gates, that's fine, make sure
Speaker 4: you vote for Pete Hagg Seth Right, Like I understand, Okay, Gates.
Speaker 3: I get it, it's Gates.
Speaker 4: But like, if you're going to not vote for Gates,
Speaker 4: you are going to vote for Pete Pete haggsath at
Speaker 4: the part he was like a bargaining chip essentially is
Speaker 4: and I mean it's possible.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit of both.
Speaker 4: Right that the first and foremost the reason Donald Trump
Speaker 4: wanted Matt Gates because he wants Matt Gates. And then
Speaker 4: he realized what maybe puts it over the edge is
Speaker 4: like okay, we'll say, people say that's their line in
Speaker 4: the sand, Well we can definitely get Pete through then
Speaker 4: something like that. But I think it's absolutely true that
Speaker 4: he wants to Orney General Matt Gates.
Speaker 3: Like that's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think he wants if he wants something,
Speaker 1: he's going to get it. You know, he is firmly
Speaker 1: he has never been more in control of this Republican Party.
Speaker 1: So the voices of resistance that were there on the
Speaker 1: Republican side back when he came into office in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: I think you're going to see a lot, not that
Speaker 1: there won't be any, but I think you're going to
Speaker 1: see a lot less of that. We've got to clip
Speaker 1: will show you later that I think you know backs
Speaker 1: that up and so and the other thing that you know,
Speaker 1: as someone who's left of center.
Speaker 5: Here looking at the way.
Speaker 1: Republicans operating, the way Trump operates in particular, versus how
Speaker 1: Democrats operate, Democrats would be, oh, I.
Speaker 5: Don't know if they can make it through Senate confirmation.
Speaker 1: We're going to try to go ahead and triangulate to
Speaker 1: the person that we think can make it through. And
Speaker 1: you know about that, there's this little rule that might
Speaker 1: keep us from being able to get it done. And
Speaker 1: with Trump, it's like, no, I want this thing. I'm
Speaker 1: going to find out a way to make it happen
Speaker 1: and come hell or high water, Like if I want
Speaker 1: Matt Gates is my attorney general.
Speaker 5: Matt Gates going to be attorney general. So that's probably
Speaker 5: the way to look at it.
Speaker 4: Republicans are very uncomfortable with it. They don't want to
Speaker 4: some are. I mean there's even even conservative Republicans are
Speaker 4: uncomfortable with it because they were always deferential to Senate
Speaker 4: procedure and to like the kind of traditions I mean,
Speaker 4: right conservative, But nope, not anymore.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and we're going to get in a little bit.
Speaker 1: We now know who the Senate Majority leader is going
Speaker 1: to be. It is not actually the pick that Maga
Speaker 1: and Trump wanted, but Trump had already put out this thing.
Speaker 1: Whoever is the Senate Majority leader has to commit to
Speaker 1: doing recess appointments. This can get in the weeds, I know,
Speaker 1: But you know, the Senate, it's this very prideful institution
Speaker 1: and one of their primary responsibilities is advice and consent
Speaker 1: on the nominees and going through this process of questioning them,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 5: And all of the.
Speaker 1: People who were seeking that job immediately when Trump said
Speaker 1: that said, no problem, we'll do it.
Speaker 5: It's all you.
Speaker 1: And that represents, you know, immediate sort of abdication of
Speaker 1: an important power that they had to Donald Trump. So
Speaker 1: to me, that's indicative of the tone and the you know,
Speaker 1: the power dynamics that you're likely to see throughout this administration.
Speaker 1: Gates is not the only big, very interesting pick that
Speaker 1: we got yesterday. Let's go and put a one ce
Speaker 1: up on the screen. Tulci Gabbard has been tapped to
Speaker 1: serve as Trump's Director of National Intelligence.
Speaker 5: Of course, Tulsi was previously a.
Speaker 1: Democrat, previously very critical of Trump and his foreign policy.
Speaker 1: She said famously like being Saudi Arabia's bitch is not
Speaker 1: America first, a tweet which apparently still up to this day,
Speaker 1: kind of an incredible statement in.
Speaker 5: And of itself.
Speaker 3: Does she act Kushner?
Speaker 1: I think it was implied it was a subtweet, subsweet, amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So anyways, she's gonna be a director of National Intelligence.
Speaker 1: She also had there was some indication that she was
Speaker 1: herself being so under the Biden administration when she was
Speaker 1: moving through airport, she was like being tracked, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So what do you make of this particular pick.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's really fascinating that it's likely now
Speaker 4: we'll have because recess appointments, a great example, are the
Speaker 4: reason why I mean Telsy Gabbert is someone who would
Speaker 4: actually have a hard time listening confirmation, and we may
Speaker 4: see that happen, and we may see recess appointment in
Speaker 4: this case. But yeah, to have her and Marca Rubio
Speaker 4: side by side, I mean, just take both of them
Speaker 4: on Syria, just like go back and look at how
Speaker 4: both of them handled the question of Syria.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: It is there foreign policies distilled into this like perfect contrast.
Speaker 4: They are so incredibly different from one another that it's
Speaker 4: amazing to think this is I mean D and I
Speaker 4: is not a joke, Like that's a very serious position.
Speaker 4: It's a powerful position. Obviously the same will be set
Speaker 4: of Secretary of State, so that those two will have
Speaker 4: those clashing viewpoints. I think a lot of regular Americans
Speaker 4: will say that's really good. The other possibilities is its
Speaker 4: total mass. It's just a total disaster because nobody can.
Speaker 3: Get on the same page. Our allies and enemies.
Speaker 4: Are hearing different things from different people, and nothing is clear.
Speaker 4: So again, like maybe there's something good that comes from it.
Speaker 4: I don't. I can't think of a modern precedent for
Speaker 4: having that polarized viewpoints in such high profile positions in
Speaker 4: such a way that it's your worldview, not just like
Speaker 4: a policy difference on Syria, for example, but like Syria
Speaker 4: is a representation of how I mean. Marco Rubio is
Speaker 4: an old school cold warrior who has had a shift
Speaker 4: towards realism. But I wouldn't call him a realist. He said,
Speaker 4: a shift towards realism. He didn't vote for the Ukraine
Speaker 4: aid package that was in the spring, but as some
Speaker 4: people pointed out, he really kind of hemmed and hot
Speaker 4: about why he didn't vote for it, and there were
Speaker 4: a lot of different reasons that he gave. He's been
Speaker 4: fairly supportive of Ukraine. He recently called the worst stalemates.
Speaker 4: He says it needs to come to an end, so
Speaker 4: at least that's something. But in Latin America he's like
Speaker 4: old school cold warrior. He obviously was very supportive of
Speaker 4: older policies in the Middle East, as was Pete Haig said,
Speaker 4: by the way, although he seems to have, as Dan
Speaker 4: called well, Concerned Vets who worked for him with him
Speaker 4: at Concerned Vets has said he shifted. I think Marco
Speaker 4: Rubio has shifted less than a lot of people.
Speaker 5: On the right, did it, am I remembering this correctly?
Speaker 1: Like just a couple of months ago, Toldy say that
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio would be a disasters pick.
Speaker 4: In July, she did an interview on Megan Kelly Show
Speaker 4: in July tenth and said, this is like this would
Speaker 4: be a really bad sign and a big mistake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Marco Rubio, like by any reasonable standard,
Speaker 1: is a neocon. Like you know, I think there's and
Speaker 1: Sager mad at this point. I think this is an
Speaker 1: important point. Like it's one thing for people at this moment,
Speaker 1: given how clear the issue is on the Republican side
Speaker 1: of the ledger to pull back with regard to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It's another thing to have been you know, correct from
Speaker 1: the beginning on things like the Iraq war on Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: And you know, the other thing is that Trump himself
Speaker 1: there's no indication he is anti war, even as it's
Speaker 1: possible and even this is really not clear that he
Speaker 1: may take a different approach on Ukraine. But like I said,
Speaker 1: even that is not totally clear because he has been
Speaker 1: on both sides of that issue as well as the
Speaker 1: time hit Joe Biden from the hawkish end of saying
Speaker 1: like you're not doing enough for the Ukrainians. But it's
Speaker 1: more that, you know, some of the critics of the
Speaker 1: Ukraine War, they're more interested in, hey, we need to
Speaker 1: keep our powder dry so that we can potentially go
Speaker 1: to war with China. None of these individuals, Tulsi included.
Speaker 1: Tulsi has completely shifted her position with regard to Israel.
Speaker 1: She used to be critical and now she's, you know,
Speaker 1: completely on board with whatever Israel wants to do. Otherwise
Speaker 1: they don't think she would be in this particular position.
Speaker 1: Dare I say, given that, you know, a pack seems
Speaker 1: to have had a lot of influence, whether overt or covert,
Speaker 1: They've had a lot of influence in terms of the
Speaker 1: foreign policy related picks, in particular his.
Speaker 3: Ambassador to Israel's My Khokapi.
Speaker 4: So I mean it would be hard for Telsey Gabbert
Speaker 4: to have her old positions on Israel.
Speaker 1: Yes, and Headseath is equally like as sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, Messiania has this very religiously driven view of Israel,
Speaker 1: and this is quite unprecedented. I mean, obviously our foreign
Speaker 1: policy has always been like lockstep with Israel, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But you know, how could be is the
Speaker 1: type where it's not just the Biden administration sort of
Speaker 1: like agreed with Yov Galant, who was also in my view,
Speaker 1: like a maniac and said that Palestinians like are our animals,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. But he was at least interested in, hey,
Speaker 1: how do we get our own hostages back? How could
Speaker 1: be in Hegsath are more in line with like Ben
Speaker 1: Gaverin's motrich that are like, we need to just and
Speaker 1: this problem once overall take over the West Bank, like
Speaker 1: this is, you know, our religious fulfillment of religious prophecy.
Speaker 1: And they're all sort of like weirdly on the same
Speaker 1: page with that. So it does represent and shift in
Speaker 1: that regard. We'll move on to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about Rubio, but I also one thing I was
Speaker 1: thinking about, both with regard to the quote unquote deep
Speaker 1: State and with regard to the Department of Justice, is,
Speaker 1: you know, the way he portrays these type of picks
Speaker 1: is like, I'm going to make sure that justice is
Speaker 1: done and that it's not weaponized, et cetera. That's not
Speaker 1: actually what he wants.
Speaker 5: He wants.
Speaker 1: He wants it to be weaponized the way he wants
Speaker 1: it to be weaponised. That's true in the first administration,
Speaker 1: I think will be even more true now. And you
Speaker 1: know he's been pretty upfront about that. It's the same
Speaker 1: thing with things like surveillance, which falls under the Tulsi
Speaker 1: Gabbard DNI where it's not that he's opposed to mass surveillance,
Speaker 1: it's not that he's opposed to censorship, it's that he
Speaker 1: wants it to be applied to his enemies. So, you know,
Speaker 1: things like surveilling any sort of left movement racial justice,
Speaker 1: you know, economic justice, certainly, the pro Palestine movement, like
Speaker 1: any you know, resurgent, like Black Lives Matter movement, anything
Speaker 1: like that. He would be all totally cool, if not
Speaker 1: affirmatively in support of the type of surveillance that's been
Speaker 1: weaponized against all kinds of activist groups.
Speaker 5: Across the board.
Speaker 1: And we've already seen his position with regard to censorship.
Speaker 1: I mean, he wants to deport anyone who is pro Palestine,
Speaker 1: he wants flag burning to be banned. The list goes
Speaker 1: on and on. So it's not like he's actually pro
Speaker 1: First Amendment. He just wants speech restrictions to be applied
Speaker 1: in the way that serves him and goes against his
Speaker 1: own political enemies. So I think that's the other thing
Speaker 1: to keep in mind when we're talking about the powers
Speaker 1: at DMI.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's some Republicans who are really strong on
Speaker 4: free speech and consistent, you know, like Thomas Massey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely hopefully tells the Gabbard.
Speaker 4: But I mean, I think it's an open question and
Speaker 4: Rand Paul, but you need one of them, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, Like, Yeah, it's so easy for the
Speaker 4: others to slip into this is anti semitic speech. Of
Speaker 4: course it must be surveilled, or of course it's anti Semitic,
Speaker 4: it must be connected to foreign terrorist groups, so of
Speaker 4: course it falls under this umbrella. It goes into this
Speaker 4: category something we.
Speaker 3: Have to surveil.
Speaker 4: So it's just very very easy for even people who
Speaker 4: are like anti establishment Republicans to slip into that. That's
Speaker 4: all right, it's a I mean, I think that is
Speaker 4: also a huge unanswered question.
Speaker 3: And uh there.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm optimistic about Tulsi Gabbert. I'm one of
Speaker 4: the like, I'm still still faith in Tulsa.
Speaker 5: But we'll see, Yeah, we will.
Speaker 1: I Mean the reason I don't is because she's just
Speaker 1: totally flipped her position on so many issues with no
Speaker 1: explanation for it, and so you know, to me, it
Speaker 1: just seems like she made a calculation that her path
Speaker 1: to having more notoriety influenced power, et cetera. Was just
Speaker 1: to come on board with Trump and whatever that entailed.
Speaker 1: And hey, she played her cards right.
Speaker 4: I'd rather have a Trump administration with Taulsi Gabbert and
Speaker 4: Mark Rubio than and I like Marco Ruby honestly, but
Speaker 4: then just Marko Rubio, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 4: it just makes me more comfortable as an American that
Speaker 4: there's at least some divergence on really critical issues. And yes,
Speaker 4: I think Gabert has changed her mind on some key things,
Speaker 4: but some of those have been I mean, I just
Speaker 4: don't have a sense that maybe, other than Israel, she's
Speaker 4: had a fundamental shift in her worldview and foreign policy
Speaker 4: in a way that would put her in line with
Speaker 4: a Marco Rubio. So I think we could be in
Speaker 4: for some really interesting disagreements in the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how this all plays out.
Speaker 1: It was definitely going to be interesting. We've referenced this already.
Speaker 1: We could put a two up on the screen, Mark
Speaker 1: or Rubio. It is official in for Secretary of State
Speaker 1: Emily what happened here? Because this got reported and there
Speaker 1: was kind of a freaking on the Magi side, because
Speaker 1: he is a Neocon and you know, low Marco Trump
Speaker 1: himself had very critical words of him to say in
Speaker 1: the past about how he'd be Sheldon Naedelson's puppet, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. How far we've come from those days, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there was a delay in the release.
Speaker 5: Of this name. On the Trump side.
Speaker 1: There was some suggestion that like, oh, you know, Tucker
Speaker 1: was flying down to talk to him, and there was
Speaker 1: this whole coalescing of all these people who are going
Speaker 1: to try to talk about MARKA. Rubio in a state,
Speaker 1: but ultimately Marco Rubio is in as state. So what
Speaker 1: do you make of all of that? What can you know?
Speaker 1: What can you say about that?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it was so the Rubio people
Speaker 4: were really confident from the beginning, so I think they
Speaker 4: and someone was confident obviously enough to leak it to
Speaker 4: Maggie Haberman. And but that said, even after it's leaked
Speaker 4: to the New York Times, there's a series of days
Speaker 4: where Donald Trump makes all of these other major announcements
Speaker 4: and of people who are much less, much less orthodox
Speaker 4: picks than a senator. You know, Pete Haig Sath is
Speaker 4: a good example, and Marco Rubio comes what Wednesday night,
Speaker 4: Wednesday evening somewhere around there. I mean, yeah, I think
Speaker 4: there was serious. I think there was an effort to
Speaker 4: thwart it among people. You know, you probably get people
Speaker 4: can probably guess who they are if you remember when
Speaker 4: Dave Smith tweeted something like the battle against Mike Pompeio
Speaker 4: is good, but like we have to make sure there
Speaker 4: are no neo cons in this administration. Don Junior Donald
Speaker 4: Trump Junior quote tweeted that and said agree one hundred.
Speaker 3: One hundred, Yeah, I'm on it.
Speaker 4: And so I think you could probably read into what
Speaker 4: happened over those series of days. There was some leaks
Speaker 4: that it was coming from Rick Cornell's camp. Rick Garnell
Speaker 4: obviously would have wanted a position similar to that, and
Speaker 4: he hasn't. He doesn't have anything so far, not D
Speaker 4: N I, not.
Speaker 7: C I A.
Speaker 4: Those are all things that he was talked about for,
Speaker 4: not d D, any of those like. It just didn't
Speaker 4: happen for Rick Cornell, and I think there probably was.
Speaker 4: Rick Cornell said he wasn't the one leaking negative things
Speaker 4: about Marco Rubio.
Speaker 5: But that doesn't mean that it wasn't. People in his camp.
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean it wasn't people in his camp, And
Speaker 4: it doesn't mean actually that other whether they were in
Speaker 4: his camp or not, it doesn't mean that, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe somebody like Donald Trump Junior or Tucker Carlson weren't
Speaker 4: lobbying really hard for basically anyone but Marco Rubio or
Speaker 4: John Bolton obviously, but basically anyone other than Marco Rubio
Speaker 4: because they see him as a pretty like that's that's
Speaker 4: a holdover from the previous Republican right on foreign policy right.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that he gets chosen anyway in
Speaker 1: spite of that kind of relatively organized effort to block him,
Speaker 1: what do you think that that indicates about who has influenced?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think that tells you exactly what's
Speaker 4: going to happen in this administration that you.
Speaker 5: Know, and you right into that Susie Wiles or.
Speaker 4: Susie Wiles, probably Susie Wiles and Susie Wilds, by the way,
Speaker 4: is I you know, has been affiliated with Mercury, which
Speaker 4: is like the swampiest lobbying firm in d C.
Speaker 5: It was kind of pharma, like all the all the
Speaker 5: bad guys.
Speaker 4: And it was who Paul Matnafort was lobbying for when
Speaker 4: he was lobbying on behalf of the Party of Regions
Speaker 4: in Ukraine, he was doing as a part through Mercury.
Speaker 4: And so there's just a lot of I think donor
Speaker 4: class baggage that comes with las A Vita and Stuzie Wiles.
Speaker 4: And I wonder actually if the announcement of Tulsi as
Speaker 4: D and I, which came out either right before, right
Speaker 4: after Rubio, maybe right after the Rubio announcement, was part
Speaker 4: of that push and pull with Don Juior, Tucker Carlson
Speaker 4: and others saying like, okay.
Speaker 1: Well at least give us throw us a bone here
Speaker 1: basically bone right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I kind of wonder if that's what happened
Speaker 4: in all of the infighting, because what was happening over
Speaker 4: the course of this week, Like I had us Wurst,
Speaker 4: who was very knowledgeable about the transition, who said, the
Speaker 4: Trump people don't fully trust Tulsi Gabbard.
Speaker 3: Ryan and I talked about this yesterday.
Speaker 4: That's not Trump himself, but Trump world doesn't fully trust
Speaker 4: Tulsi Gabbard, and so she was.
Speaker 3: Kind of on the chopping block.
Speaker 4: Rubio I think absolutely was on the chopping block just
Speaker 4: it seemed like Trump was pretty set on the pick,
Speaker 4: but there was still intense fighting among like Don Junior
Speaker 4: and others. So I don't know if Rubio, maybe this
Speaker 4: is an interesting part of the story, if Rubio indicated
Speaker 4: that his foreign policy was shifting more than maybe publicly
Speaker 4: we've seen his foreign policy shift in a way that
Speaker 4: made them feel comfortable.
Speaker 3: But it's hard to imagine.
Speaker 4: I mean, those guys are aligned basically with the Tulsi
Speaker 4: Gabbard ideology, and I don't know how Rubio could have
Speaker 4: indicated anything to them that would say he was really
Speaker 4: in that category.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the thing is with Trump, if he actually
Speaker 1: takes like a you know, an interest in something and
Speaker 1: has a clear ideological position, and everyone's going to fall
Speaker 1: in line with whatever it is he wants. It's just
Speaker 1: that he doesn't always have, you know, And then it
Speaker 1: becomes okay, well, what are the voices in the room
Speaker 1: saying what are the options that are being presented?
Speaker 5: And we've seen him be.
Speaker 1: Very you know, kind of malleable in the past based
Speaker 1: on who happens to be around him, etc. On something
Speaker 1: that isn't core. So in any case, that was you know,
Speaker 1: to me that was an interesting indication of the way
Speaker 1: some of these intra mega battles are playing out. And
Speaker 1: when Susie Wiles was first named chief of staff, I
Speaker 1: was a little bit surprised by that, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 5: But I also was surprised that.
Speaker 1: There wasn't concern over that in megaworld, because the thought
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, she's just an apparatic, she's just non ideological.
Speaker 1: There's no such thing in this town. There's no such
Speaker 1: thing as non ideological. Non ideological basically defaults to like
Speaker 1: whatever the sort of mainstream conventional wisdom is, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I think perhaps her fingerprints and her influence
Speaker 1: seems to be on some of these picks. But also,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump is a big boy and makes up
Speaker 1: his own mind. And I always get irritated when people
Speaker 1: are like, oh this it's the fault of this person,
Speaker 1: is the fall of that person. It's like, this is
Speaker 1: the man that was elected president of the United States.
Speaker 1: He's had years to think about who he wants in
Speaker 1: these positions. He's making up his own mind. So you know,
Speaker 1: he also deserves like direct blame credit, however you want
Speaker 1: to look at it. For the picks that he is
Speaker 1: ultimately putting forward Rubio certainly another one in the you know,
Speaker 1: Miriam Maddilson very pleased with this pick as well. He's
Speaker 1: been extremely aggressive and hawkish, you know, on the side
Speaker 1: of Israel. There was a poor Michael Tracy tweeted down
Speaker 1: Israeli media apparently quote unquote dancing the horror and Netanyahu's
Speaker 1: office over Trump filling his administration with quote old school Republicans.
Speaker 1: Not exactly music to the ears of people like Tucker
Speaker 1: Carlson or Dave Smith at I'll let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: take a listen to a little bit of that.
Speaker 8: And going back back to Mike Wagonheim Mike just in
Speaker 8: the past hour, the Trump team confirming the pick of
Speaker 8: Mike Waltz as the National Security Advisor. And I don't
Speaker 8: want to exaggerate and say that Israel, the government here
Speaker 8: and its supporters are breathing a sigh of relief over
Speaker 8: these picks. But certainly I think some of the concerns
Speaker 8: they had about the next administration have been eased by
Speaker 8: picking certainly these three, especially Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, people
Speaker 8: who have for example, spoken with I twenty four News
Speaker 8: just in recent months about their strong support Israel and
Speaker 8: their concerns over Iran.
Speaker 9: Not just breathing a sigh of relief. God of, they're
Speaker 9: dancing the horror right now at the Prime Minister's office
Speaker 9: with these selections by Donald Trump. I mean, we were
Speaker 9: expecting some isolationists possibly in those positions, or maybe some
Speaker 9: who lean at least a little bit toward Trump's new
Speaker 9: foreign policy in the MAGA foreign policy hasn't been that
Speaker 9: case at all. I mean, Rubio and Mike Waltz are
Speaker 9: in the mold of an old school Republicans on policy,
Speaker 9: both pro Israel stalwarts to the hilt. They'll they'll challenge
Speaker 9: anybody who have views the situation otherwise. I mean, you
Speaker 9: couldn't have selected two better picks. I think if you're
Speaker 9: sitting in the Prime Minister's office right now, and at
Speaker 9: least the Phonic will be a firebrand at the United Nations.
Speaker 9: She already told Isaac tug in a meeting this morning
Speaker 9: that you'll have Israel's back there, and we didn't expect otherwise,
Speaker 9: but always always good to hear that if you're within
Speaker 9: the Israeli government in a very problematic institution like the UN.
Speaker 9: By the way, Marco Rubio told us last Tuesday at
Speaker 9: Donald Trump's watch party on election night that he would
Speaker 9: with the Republicans taking over the Senate, not knowing then
Speaker 9: that he would be nominated, likely for Secretary of State.
Speaker 9: He said that the Republican Senate should take up defunding
Speaker 9: more UN agencies that he feels are either in cohoots
Speaker 9: with Hamas or turn a blind eye to those terror
Speaker 9: organizations that operate in Gaza and elsewhere.
Speaker 1: So, Miriam, definitely getting our money's worth with, you know,
Speaker 1: cabinet that is quite is real first so and the.
Speaker 3: Was he trying to sabotage them.
Speaker 4: Script is that in a way that would like actually
Speaker 4: piss off Maga more getting work.
Speaker 1: Like none of that Maga forign policy here, old school
Speaker 1: republic school Republican.
Speaker 4: He's like that, they're totally from the old school Republican mold,
Speaker 4: very very reassuring.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yep, well there you go.
Speaker 1: Mary Madison gave him a hundred million dollars and there
Speaker 1: were quite a few other donors in that camp that
Speaker 1: Bill Lackman's of the world whatever who you know, wanted
Speaker 1: a certain thing from the foreign policy team, and they.
Speaker 5: Certainly got it well certainly got it.
Speaker 4: And it's also just Marco Rubio surrounds himself with people
Speaker 4: who actually are genuinely more realist. He's obviously been new
Speaker 4: right on populist economics, so just being in that category
Speaker 4: means that his milieu is more new right than it
Speaker 4: is old right. So and he's you know, had some
Speaker 4: kind of he said some interesting things about Ukraine that
Speaker 4: have indicated, as we were talking about before, a possible shift.
Speaker 4: But clearly, clearly if that were more evident, if there
Speaker 4: was much more of a shift, you would not see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the other thing that's worth noting too, And then
Speaker 1: we'll move on to the Senate stuff, but this will
Speaker 1: be a good transition to that. Rubio is one of
Speaker 1: the more interesting people in economics. He's more you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of economics, he is more clearly in that
Speaker 1: new right camp, as of course is Jade Vance. And
Speaker 1: neither one of them will be in the Senate anymore,
Speaker 1: leaving very few remaining there that have anything other than
Speaker 1: kind of like old school doctrinaire or republican views. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean that's another significance of pulling him out of
Speaker 1: that role and putting him into the role where his
Speaker 1: ideology is the worst.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's some people who are on the New Right
Speaker 4: in particular, who are now really starting to worry about
Speaker 4: this set because vants were very very key in that
Speaker 4: new coalition of at least on the economic front, especially
Speaker 4: in the economic front.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about the Senate. Put a four up on
Speaker 5: the screen.
Speaker 1: So Maga's choice, Trump's choice, Tucker Carlson's choice was Rick Scott,
Speaker 1: and he got third in terms of Senate majority vote.
Speaker 1: It was a secret vote. John Thune ultimately wins with
Speaker 1: twenty three votes, corn And got second with fifteen. Rick
Speaker 1: Scott comes in third at thirteen. I'm quite sure if
Speaker 1: this was not a secret ballot the results would be
Speaker 1: very different. But break down some of these dynamics for Assemily.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this was and Ryan and I talked about
Speaker 4: this yesterday as the vote was happening, which was like
Speaker 4: it was a mess. I mean, this entire process has
Speaker 4: been a mess. But Rick Scott for years has been
Speaker 4: laying the groundwork essentially to step into the vacuum, knowing
Speaker 4: that McConnell was ailing, which is another thing that was
Speaker 4: kind of kept quiet. Yeah, for a long time, I
Speaker 4: was talking to someone last night who works on the
Speaker 4: hill and takes pictures on the hill and was saying
Speaker 4: basically that McConnell doesn't like to be photographed in his wheelchair.
Speaker 3: Wow, he is often in a wheelchair now.
Speaker 4: So a lot of people in the Senate knew that
Speaker 4: this was coming, and Rick Scott saw that started laying.
Speaker 3: The groundwork for it.
Speaker 4: Cornyan and Thune are big McConnell allies, So Maga world.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump Junior tweeted, I mean this was like a
Speaker 4: year ago, maybe.
Speaker 3: Less than a year ago. We cannot let Cornyan.
Speaker 4: And Thune take over the Senate after Mitch McConnell leaves,
Speaker 4: like he flat out said that. And now obviously John
Speaker 4: Thune has won this race. So conservatives what got behind
Speaker 4: the Rick Scott bid? Like maga people got behind the
Speaker 4: Rick Scott bid because Rick Scott said agreed with Mike
Speaker 4: Lee that they needed to do some of these procedural
Speaker 4: changes to the way the Senate worked.
Speaker 3: Some of that was like pulling.
Speaker 4: Back Harry Reid's centralization of power, which people could debate
Speaker 4: the internal inside baseball Senate mechanisms, but it was that
Speaker 4: it was also just like come out with a clear
Speaker 4: plan for your policy goals every year, like some fairly
Speaker 4: unobjectionable things, but that Republican leadership is hesitant to do
Speaker 4: because they don't want to be bossed around by what
Speaker 4: did John McCain say, the like cuckoo birds like remember
Speaker 4: this was back in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: They don't want to be bossed around by people like that.
Speaker 4: They want to do what they want to do. And
Speaker 4: so Rick Scott became the very problematic figurehead of what
Speaker 4: I think is a good movement. Rick Scott has all
Speaker 4: kinds of corporate baggage. He's all kinds of like he's
Speaker 4: just not a charming spokes like.
Speaker 5: A medicare frodster yep, yep.
Speaker 4: And not a charming spokesman at all, right, for you know,
Speaker 4: he doesn't make deals.
Speaker 3: He's not one of those people.
Speaker 4: Like even there's some maga people who you can hate
Speaker 4: the swamp and you can still be good at, like operating,
Speaker 4: you can still be good at like actually negotiating. Rick
Speaker 4: Scott is not seen as one of those people at all,
Speaker 4: and for good reason. He's he's started prickly, and so
Speaker 4: everyone gets behind Rick Scott. But knowing that Rick Scott's
Speaker 4: it doesn't have a shot in hell because people don't
Speaker 4: really like him that much. They started to maga Conservative
Speaker 4: started to work on John Cornyn, started to try to
Speaker 4: get concessions out of John Cornyn and say, all right,
Speaker 4: you know, Cornyn, you know that you need us, so
Speaker 4: why don't you just say or why don't you just
Speaker 4: like give us a little bit of these procedural differences.
Speaker 4: He became a Kevin McCarthy figure. That's how Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 4: became speaker, sort of giving a little to the Freedom Caucus, right,
Speaker 4: that's what Mike Lee was asking for, and Corny went
Speaker 4: along with it. Cornyn lost and it was obviously, I mean,
Speaker 4: there was a sort of splitting the vote between Scott
Speaker 4: and Cornyn. So I think most people didn't want John Thune.
Speaker 4: But one of my sources who was working on this
Speaker 4: gave a pretty good quote yesterday when I asked basically
Speaker 4: what happened, how did fuon Edge ut Cornyn and Scott?
Speaker 4: The source said, quote handing out committee assignments like candy
Speaker 4: and activating k Street. The conference has been clear. This
Speaker 4: person said that they want reforms and expect them. John
Speaker 4: Thune did not win by an overwhelming margin. He's edge
Speaker 4: ut corner by five votes. He has a mandate, but barely.
Speaker 4: He's going to have to shake up the status quote
Speaker 4: to retain the trust of the conference. So we will
Speaker 4: I see if John Thune feels that pressure and gives
Speaker 4: in to some of these things, like having four weeks
Speaker 4: of debate before an omnibus, which I think everyone should say, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's great. Four weeks of debate before we spend billions
Speaker 4: of dollars in all of these different ways.
Speaker 3: That sounds good. I wouldn't be super optimistic that he'll
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 5: Though, yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean from Trump's perspective, I think he just wanted
Speaker 1: someone who he felt would be guaranteed to do what
Speaker 1: he wants him them.
Speaker 3: To do, yeh.
Speaker 1: And he felt the most confident that Rick Scott would
Speaker 1: be that person. And again, like you know, to try
Speaker 1: to parse the ideology is a waste of time in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, because on ideologically.
Speaker 5: You can corrack me if I'm wrong. I don't think
Speaker 5: the three of.
Speaker 1: These guys have much ideological difference. I mean, Rick Scott
Speaker 1: is not on the New Right. You know, he put
Speaker 1: out a he put out the Republican Policy Priorities for
Speaker 1: the midterm elections that were like a disaster for them
Speaker 1: because it called for sunsetting every single federal government program,
Speaker 1: including Social Security and medicare every what was it three
Speaker 1: years or something like that, and it was an albatross
Speaker 1: around the nets of Republic. He's just he's a standard
Speaker 1: issue Reagan type conservative as far as economics go, as
Speaker 1: are all three of these. So I think it was
Speaker 1: more about for Trump, which one do I feel the
Speaker 1: most confident is going to be the most loyal to me.
Speaker 1: My guess, looking from the outside at how all of
Speaker 1: this is going to go, is that Trump has such
Speaker 1: a hold on the party now and has such a
Speaker 1: clear track record of punishing anyone who crosses him that
Speaker 1: probably John Thune is going to do whatever Trump wants
Speaker 1: him to do when Trump decides to wade into these debates.
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's the part that maybe separates
Speaker 1: the three of them, is that Trump doesn't always wait
Speaker 1: into these So there's a lot you can do behind
Speaker 1: the scenes that he's not really paying that close attention to,
Speaker 1: and perhaps that's where the difference comes. But on anything
Speaker 1: that actually is important to Donald Trump, like all three,
Speaker 1: and the indication to me is all three of these
Speaker 1: men immediately when Trump was like, I want recess appointments,
Speaker 1: were like, no problem to recess appointments, which again is
Speaker 1: handing a gigantic part of their power over to the
Speaker 1: executive branch.
Speaker 4: Although one point that I think is interesting, just as
Speaker 4: a hypothetical to test, is what does John Thune do
Speaker 4: when Donald Trump? If Donald Trump we don't know this
Speaker 4: yet because we don't know much about what he would
Speaker 4: actually do when it comes to Ukraine, but when Donald
Speaker 4: Trump wants to pair Ukraine funding to a border thing
Speaker 4: that won't get through, or when Donald Trump wants to
Speaker 4: actually force Ukraine to the table and the aid becomes
Speaker 4: conditional or something like that. John Thune is a McConnell
Speaker 4: ally he is, and Mitch McConnell's still in the Senate,
Speaker 4: and Mitch McConnell is tied into the donor class that
Speaker 4: is deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply deeply supportive of Zelensky and Ukraine,
Speaker 4: and that is their red line. And I'm genuinely I
Speaker 4: think it's a pretty interesting hypothetical. I agree that I
Speaker 4: think John Thune will go along with a lot of
Speaker 4: the Trump agenda, but there are certain things that are
Speaker 4: such red lines for the donor class.
Speaker 3: We don't know if Trump will test those boundaries.
Speaker 4: But if he does, I actually wonder what would happen.
Speaker 4: I don't know because John Thune is so deep fully
Speaker 4: in Mashton k Street, the donor class, McConnell world, the
Speaker 4: old school Republican Party, and their red lines are so bright.
Speaker 4: Let's say Donald Trump decides to do something hydrodocks in Ukraine.
Speaker 4: Maybe he would do something weird on Israel. Maybe Telsea
Speaker 4: Gabbard does something that they find objectionable. These are all
Speaker 4: just random hypotheticals, and if they happened, I don't know
Speaker 4: that Sune might put up a like a fight because.
Speaker 3: He's just so entangled with McConnell world.
Speaker 4: So we'll see, but I think generally I agree that
Speaker 4: he'll he'll be pretty what's the best word, compliant, Yes, pliable?
Speaker 5: Yes, all right.
Speaker 1: Let's also so we don't have to play the thot,
Speaker 1: but it is worth noting this is a five. You
Speaker 1: don't have to play it though that he did say
Speaker 1: he's going to keep the filibuster in place. We'll see
Speaker 1: if that maintains. But that's the current current positioning. I
Speaker 1: imagine there may be some pressure to get rid of that,
Speaker 1: but there's also a lot of mechanisms you can use,
Speaker 1: like budget reconciliation that allows you to get through what
Speaker 1: you want using majority vote. You know, democrated some of
Speaker 1: that they were in office, but they also be like, oh,
Speaker 1: the parliamentarian said we could do blah blah blah. I
Speaker 1: don't think that the Republicans will have that same like.
Speaker 5: Oh the rules the parliamentarian ruled, we can't do.
Speaker 1: So there's still a lot they can get done with
Speaker 1: a fifty three se majority.
Speaker 4: They're pushing reconciliation right away. That has to be first
Speaker 4: one hundred days, pass the priorities through reconciliation, border priorities.
Speaker 3: Like put it all in there. Yeah, so that'll definitely happen.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: The other thing that David Soroda always with his eye
Speaker 1: on the ball, You guys should be subscribing to eleve
Speaker 1: News because they.
Speaker 5: Do great work.
Speaker 1: I don't care where you are on the ideological spectrum.
Speaker 1: Put this up on the screen soon. Is like an
Speaker 1: actual lobbyist, like like that was his profession before he
Speaker 1: was in the Senate.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was a lobbyist.
Speaker 1: And Serota says less than two years after the East
Speaker 1: Palestine disaster, Republicans have now made their new leader a
Speaker 1: former railroad lobbyist who helped block real safety legislation. So
Speaker 1: he is a swamp creature. I don't think there is
Speaker 1: any denying that he.
Speaker 3: Was the problem.
Speaker 4: On that jd Vance shared Brownville, Johnathan was a huge,
Speaker 4: hugely problematic.
Speaker 3: What's the what's the phrase gumbing up the works? Yeah
Speaker 3: for that, bill?
Speaker 5: Gotcha?
Speaker 1: The other thing last piece and time we'll get to
Speaker 1: Trump's meeting with Biden, is you know this is indicative
Speaker 1: of how I think most of this is going to
Speaker 1: operate on the Hill, whether it's people who were at
Speaker 1: some point adversarial to different Donald Trump priorities. Trump has
Speaker 1: cemented his full control of this party Congress, and Troy
Speaker 1: Neills had a memorable quote about this.
Speaker 5: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: There's no question he's a leader of our party. So
Speaker 6: now he's got a mission, state of his mission, and
Speaker 6: his goals and objectives, whatever that is. We need to
Speaker 6: embrace it, all of it, every single word. If Donald
Speaker 6: Trump says jumped three feet high and scratch your head,
Speaker 6: we all jump three feet high and scratch your heads.
Speaker 1: Okay, sure, I mean that's that's whatever his goals are
Speaker 1: doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: It's what a lot of the Magabas wants. It's exactly
Speaker 4: what the Magama wants to be hear. And it's a
Speaker 4: great reminder that there is no Mago without Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: meaning he is the ideology. And you know, normally what
Speaker 4: you would say is whatever you know is you know
Speaker 4: what the Tea party wants, that's what we want. You know.
Speaker 4: It's different when you're saying when this one individual wants,
Speaker 4: that's what we want.
Speaker 3: He is the ideology of MAGA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is Yeah, that's exactly right. And
Speaker 1: so it's a very honest statement. And while others would
Speaker 1: have too much shame to say it quite as overtly
Speaker 1: as this gentleman did, that is that is the operating
Speaker 1: sentiment among the vast majority of the Republican Party at
Speaker 1: this point. Interesting meeting that happened yesterday between the current
Speaker 1: president and the once in future president. We can go
Speaker 1: ahead and take a look at this Joe Biden meeting
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump. There fireplace a blazon in the background,
Speaker 1: and seemed quite friendly. I was enjoying himself, certainly. Look
Speaker 1: at Joe Biden, man, big old smile on his face,
Speaker 1: seems happy and relaxed. There's a photo op afterwards, everybody
Speaker 1: getting together for a nice, nice picture with fire is.
Speaker 4: The metaphor, right Crystal, Because if we go back and
Speaker 4: we look at fire of.
Speaker 5: That relationship, right, burning.
Speaker 4: Bright, burning bright, burning furious, I know we're gonna have
Speaker 4: a Also, if you're if you're watching this, we're gonna
Speaker 4: play the video of Obama and Trump's meeting, which was
Speaker 4: so much colder, and literally must have been colder because
Speaker 4: there was no fire trying in that same fire.
Speaker 5: That's so true.
Speaker 4: But I mean the photo shot, the photo shoot that
Speaker 4: they did with Joe Biden. I actually thought was at first,
Speaker 4: I was like, this looks like AI right when I
Speaker 4: saw the pictures, Yeah, because they were so friendly and warm,
Speaker 4: and a lot of people, Chris, I don't know what
Speaker 4: your take is on this, but a lot of people
Speaker 4: are looking in this, at least in the online discourse
Speaker 4: and being like this makes me so mad because you
Speaker 4: were calling him, You were calling Trumpet fascist, the end
Speaker 4: of democracy. He was being compared to Nazis. He was saying,
Speaker 4: you know what, you were pushing the story about how
Speaker 4: he wanted generals like Hitler. The DNC projected that onto
Speaker 4: Madison Square Garden. So now you're, well, look Mingham with
Speaker 4: this beautiful, warm fire and friendly smile that is just
Speaker 4: as warm as the fire into the Oval office and
Speaker 4: acting like it's business as usual. Feels like you were
Speaker 4: just messing with us to get our votes. Yeah, well,
Speaker 4: that's what serious about it.
Speaker 1: That's a thing to be enraged about, whether you're on
Speaker 1: the right or the leaf, because from my perspective, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump does have a fascist ideology and attempts to operate
Speaker 1: as such. And Joe Biden is the person I mean,
Speaker 1: in a way, it's perfect because Joe Biden is the
Speaker 1: person most proximately responsible for ushering Donald Trump back into
Speaker 1: the White House. So why shouldn't it be warm and friendly?
Speaker 1: You know, his ash should have gotten out after one term,
Speaker 1: and there should have been a democratic primary and a
Speaker 1: democratic process, and instead, you know, even as he was
Speaker 1: so aduled that he was unable to even host like
Speaker 1: a leadership meeting of Congressional Democrats without Nancy Plosi having
Speaker 1: a Russian and save him because he forgot where he
Speaker 1: was and what he was even supposed to be doing,
Speaker 1: he still was so arrogant that he thought he needed
Speaker 1: to run again and have another four year term in
Speaker 1: the White House, even though it's preposterous that he's even
Speaker 1: the president right now given his condition. So in a sense,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, this is kind of perfect because you
Speaker 1: are the person who helped get this man right back
Speaker 1: where he was before, even though your previous you know,
Speaker 1: stated goal and what you thought was going to be
Speaker 1: your legacy was the one thing that Joe Biden was
Speaker 1: nominated by Democrats to do in twenty twenty was to
Speaker 1: end the Trump era, and instead you have extended it.
Speaker 1: So hey, you know, there you go, enjoying the fruits
Speaker 1: of your labor.
Speaker 5: Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: Great work, totally, And I'm loving the memes that Brandon
Speaker 4: is like a secret Trump supporter, right, like this has all.
Speaker 5: Been He does lookt up, he does look hat when.
Speaker 3: He put the Trump hat on, and I don't think.
Speaker 1: He understands because his brain doesn't function that Like he
Speaker 1: thinks he's been proven right by the fact that Kamala lost. Yes,
Speaker 1: he thinks people are looking at this because I'm sure
Speaker 1: this is what his aim aids are telling him and
Speaker 1: his wife and whoever hunter that oh, you would have
Speaker 1: won Pops, you would have done it, and everybody sees
Speaker 1: that now everybody regrets that they didn't keep you. No,
Speaker 1: the reality is, as the Pod Saved Dudes revealed, you
Speaker 1: are headed to a four hundred electoral college vote loss,
Speaker 1: like a dramatic sweeping. Right now, It's like, okay, they
Speaker 1: lost every battleguard. It's like what it was closed, it
Speaker 1: was like a couple hundred thousand votes. All right, we
Speaker 1: could get back in and blah blah blah. We held
Speaker 1: on to most of our senates wing state seats outside
Speaker 1: of Bob Casey. Like, okay, but if it was four
Speaker 1: hundred electoral college but you're talking at super majority in
Speaker 1: the Senate, very likely, you're talking massive house margins.
Speaker 5: You're talking like just it's over, It's over, over, over.
Speaker 1: Just to show you the contrast with the Obama Trump visit,
Speaker 1: which I think also is just a symbolic two of
Speaker 1: this is in Trump's first time in Washington, like this
Speaker 1: is normal now, And there are a lot of young
Speaker 1: Americans for whom you know, in terms of their cognizant life,
Speaker 1: the trump eras really all they know. So let's take
Speaker 1: a look at the very different vibe of Obama and
Speaker 1: Trump together during that transition.
Speaker 7: Most of all, I want to emphasize to you.
Speaker 2: Miss President elect, that.
Speaker 4: We now are going to want to do everything we
Speaker 4: can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then
Speaker 4: the country succeeds.
Speaker 7: Please fun well, Thank you very much, President Obama. This
Speaker 7: was a meeting that was going to last for maybe
Speaker 7: ten or fifteen minutes, and we were just going to
Speaker 7: get to know each other. We had never met each other.
Speaker 7: I have great respect. The meeting lasted for almost an
Speaker 7: hour and a half, and it could have, as far
Speaker 7: as I'm concerned, it could have gone on for a
Speaker 7: lot longer. We really we discussed a lot of different situations,
Speaker 7: some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward
Speaker 7: to dealing with the president in the future, including council.
Speaker 5: So anyway, no fire blazing.
Speaker 1: There very obviously much different body language for those who
Speaker 1: read into all of those things, and the vibe very different.
Speaker 4: And I like your point that for a lot of
Speaker 4: young Americans this is perfectly normal now and for the
Speaker 4: last ten years now, this is don Trump has been normalized.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is this is politics in America now.
Speaker 4: The host of the celebrity I will never get numb
Speaker 4: to the host of the Celebrity Apprentice being the president,
Speaker 4: going straight from the Celebrity Apprentice to the President of
Speaker 4: the United States, partially because Democrats insisted on Hillary Clinton
Speaker 4: and then insisted on Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, of the many takeaways and
Speaker 1: autopsies and whatever, it's not maybe the most important point,
Speaker 1: but one important point is, like, this is the era
Speaker 1: that we're living in, and so just now trying some
Speaker 1: blow dried like Pete Bootage or Gavin Newsom or whatever,
Speaker 1: and thinking that's going to be the answer.
Speaker 5: To your prayers.
Speaker 3: Blow dried.
Speaker 5: True?
Speaker 1: Right, Oh you know what I mean by that, well quaft, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like that very like buttoned, buttoned up politiciany,
Speaker 1: like very smooth on Fox News or whatever that liberals
Speaker 1: fall in love with. But you know, Trump is obnoxious
Speaker 1: and divisive, and he puts on a show and he
Speaker 1: goes out there and ransom raves about you know, people's
Speaker 1: dick size and Hannibal Lecter and whatever.
Speaker 4: By the way, nobody has talked about how Hannibal Lecter.
Speaker 4: Nobody's talked about him for Attorney General, and nobody's talked
Speaker 4: about how he's the big winner of this election cycle.
Speaker 4: Because I remember a couple of months ago NPR did
Speaker 4: like a half hour long show about how weird it
Speaker 4: was that Donald Trump was.
Speaker 5: Saying this than every rally.
Speaker 3: Of course it was weird, but like who.
Speaker 4: Cares the scheme of things?
Speaker 1: And Democrats are still out there, like, let me focus
Speaker 1: group test my way, Like do you watch this man? Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you see what he does? Do you think that
Speaker 1: he went, oh, Hannibal lecter focus groups? Well no, literally no, no,
Speaker 1: that is not how politics works, at least not in
Speaker 1: this era. So you know, take some take some cues here,
Speaker 1: learn some lessons.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they just The last thought on all of
Speaker 4: this is I blamed Democrats for like their failures and
Speaker 4: allowing the host of celebrity Apprentice to become president. But
Speaker 4: it's also Republicans, like Donald Trump is right in his
Speaker 4: diagnosis of many many of the problems in the Republican Party,
Speaker 4: and because Republicans don't have viable alternatives to Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: you keep getting trumped too.
Speaker 3: So it's just it's the system we get. We get
Speaker 3: the system we deserve.
Speaker 1: We get the culture and the system and everything we deserve.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, speaking of speaking of who's in control
Speaker 1: and what era we're in, I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: ways this is Elon Musk's era as well.
Speaker 5: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Apparently, reportedly from a couple of different outlets, there's starting
Speaker 1: to be some heartburn among the Trump's staff with Elon
Speaker 1: Musk's described near constant.
Speaker 5: Presence at Mara a Lago.
Speaker 1: One person said he's behaving as if he is a
Speaker 1: co president and making sure everyone knows it.
Speaker 5: There is no indication, though, that.
Speaker 1: Trump himself is irritated with Elon. I'm and it would
Speaker 1: make sense to I would not be surprised if at
Speaker 1: some point Trump does get irritate with Elon, especially if
Speaker 1: he feels like he's hogging too much of the spotlight,
Speaker 1: taking too much credit for things that Trump thinks he
Speaker 1: should be getting credit for, etc. So I could certainly
Speaker 1: see that break coming. But this reporting suggests more that
Speaker 1: internally some of the other people who would be jocking
Speaker 1: for position around Trump are pissed off at how much
Speaker 1: influenced Elon has.
Speaker 5: Is that the way you read it too?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, And it could just be that the
Speaker 4: surces to NBC are a few people who have been
Speaker 4: really put off by this, and there are other people
Speaker 4: who haven't said anything about it. I think that's the
Speaker 4: case with some of these stories, is it gets the
Speaker 4: temperature of a group of people who are like upset,
Speaker 4: and then they tell the reporter to talk to their
Speaker 4: friend who they know is also upset, and then that
Speaker 4: person sends them to one other person. And it could
Speaker 4: be limited to a small group of people, and they're
Speaker 4: not impossible. Yeah, although it's also entirely possible that Elon
Speaker 4: Musk has turned Donald Trump off or still will turn
Speaker 4: Donald Trump off because you fly too close to the sun,
Speaker 4: and we've seen it happen with Trump that he really,
Speaker 4: I mean jd Vance has handled this fairly deftly that
Speaker 4: like you really do not want to look in any
Speaker 4: way whatsoever, like you were taking credit, like you are
Speaker 4: the brains behind the operation that infuriates Donald Trump. So
Speaker 4: it wouldn't surprise me if that had started to rub
Speaker 4: Trump or people close to Trump in the wrong way.
Speaker 3: It also wouldn't surprise me if this.
Speaker 4: Was limited to like, I don't know, Susie Wiles or
Speaker 4: someone like that, Yeah, and her allies.
Speaker 1: To me, the way I read these comments. One of
Speaker 1: the things they said is that Elon's sure taking lots
Speaker 1: of credit for the president's victory, bragging about America packet
Speaker 1: ex to anyone who will listen, trying to make President
Speaker 1: Trump feel indebted to him in the present is indebted
Speaker 1: to no one. I read those comments as someone wanting
Speaker 1: Trump to see those comments then get pissed off. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: I think an attempt to try to create that division,
Speaker 1: which probably is inevitable given Yeah, I mean too, I
Speaker 1: think egos and narcissist. Eventually, there's going to be some
Speaker 1: source of conflict. I would be surprised if that didn't
Speaker 1: happen at some point.
Speaker 4: Especially with what seems to be right now a very
Speaker 4: fluid moment in Musk's sort of ideological journey, and that
Speaker 4: after Donald Trump was assassinated like he had been giving
Speaker 4: significant money we now assassinated, yet attempted assassination still alive,
Speaker 4: still with us, very much so that Elon Musk was
Speaker 4: formally endorsing him, but we now know he had been
Speaker 4: giving a lot of money to Ron DeSantis R. In
Speaker 4: the past, and so we also know he had been
Speaker 4: like fairly aligned with Democrats in the past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now he previously thought that Trump was completely unacceptable
Speaker 1: to be in the presidency.
Speaker 4: And not just because he was like a never Trump Republican,
Speaker 4: but because he I mean, this is a Testla guy
Speaker 4: like he has. Like we heard them talking about climate
Speaker 4: change that one time on the X Space when Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: Like it was just a wild, like total cartoonish conversation
Speaker 4: that they were having.
Speaker 3: But like they do have some differences.
Speaker 4: It just seems like Elon Musk, in this ideological journey
Speaker 4: that he's on, is becoming more and more ideologically aligned
Speaker 4: with Trump himself. Like Donald Trump as an ideology, like
Speaker 4: we were just talking about, is like Donald Trump is
Speaker 4: the ideology of MAGA. It seems like Musk has become
Speaker 4: more and more aligned with that, even so though he's
Speaker 4: not fully there. I mean, they don't agree on one
Speaker 4: hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Of the thing.
Speaker 4: So you could see there being a break for a
Speaker 4: number of different reasons, or you could see Elon Musk
Speaker 4: just saying the stakes are so high, That's why I
Speaker 4: put literally so much money behind this election. I'm going
Speaker 4: to go along to get along, and I'll be able
Speaker 4: to be playing in the little sandbox with the aik
Speaker 4: and overseeing what kinds of stuff my competitors yeah, might
Speaker 4: benefit from.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it's just like such oligarchic behavior.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, just like peak oligarch I'm going to talk.
Speaker 1: A little bit more about this in my monologue, so
Speaker 1: I'll save some of my commentary for there, but I
Speaker 1: just want those of you, my friends on the right,
Speaker 1: Imagine if it was George Soros, who was we We can
Speaker 1: put this next piece up on the screen. Elon went
Speaker 1: with Trump to his first post election meeting with the
Speaker 1: House Republican Conference. Imagine if Kamala got elected and she
Speaker 1: had her little George Soros babysitter, her oligark billionaire babysitter,
Speaker 1: running around with her to all.
Speaker 5: Of her important meetings.
Speaker 1: And there's some rumors, and I think it's appropriate for
Speaker 1: people to take this also as a sort of threat.
Speaker 1: We can put the next piece up on the screen
Speaker 1: that Elon is threatening to fund primary challenges against any
Speaker 1: House Republican who dares to step.
Speaker 5: Out from Trump's agenda.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that rumor is true, but
Speaker 1: I certainly believe believe that's the message that is being
Speaker 1: sent to House and Senate Republicans.
Speaker 5: You've got the richest.
Speaker 1: Man on the planet, who has tens of billions of
Speaker 1: dollars in federal government contractors. His companies are some of
Speaker 1: the largest Pentagon contractors. So he's got a lot of
Speaker 1: incentive to make sure that, you know, Trump gets his way,
Speaker 1: and because when Trump gets his way, Elon gets his way,
Speaker 1: and for him to be there acting as sort of
Speaker 1: like enforcer and you know, and threat. Again, just imagine
Speaker 1: if the shoe was on the other foot and it
Speaker 1: was Kamala with George Soros or Bill Gates or whatever
Speaker 1: billionaire you want to imagine, who was like your worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: You know, no one voted for Elon Musk, right, he's
Speaker 1: not elected, and yet he has this incredibly powerful position
Speaker 1: and a lot directly at stake, not just in terms
Speaker 1: of those government contracts, in terms of, hey, what happens
Speaker 1: with the you know, the ev subsidies, how are those managed? Hey,
Speaker 1: he's got a number of his companies have different regulatory
Speaker 1: issues with the federal government and under investigation from things
Speaker 1: like you know, labor violations and environmental potential violations. And
Speaker 1: so he has putting aside any ideological project, which I
Speaker 1: think he has as well, an ideological project, but even
Speaker 1: putting that aside, he himself has more at risk in
Speaker 1: you know, with federal government contracts and regulation than probably
Speaker 1: any other person on the planet.
Speaker 3: I agree with that completely.
Speaker 4: And we have more at risk as a country from
Speaker 4: his companies, which in some cases like SpaceX, this is
Speaker 4: an amazing company.
Speaker 3: You turn to Neuralink. I think it's a.
Speaker 4: Totally different conversation about the benefits of Neuralink and some
Speaker 4: of those companies. Now, I would rather have Elon Musk
Speaker 4: than to his credit. I'd rather have Elon Musk than
Speaker 4: either like Charles Koch or George Sorows partially because of
Speaker 4: something he tweeted very early this morning, Crystal, when somebody said,
Speaker 4: some are calling Elon the George Soros of the right.
Speaker 3: That's not really accurate.
Speaker 4: He's more like forty four George Soros of the right.
Speaker 4: Alongside their two net worths juxtaposed.
Speaker 1: And based on their giving and their influence in this
Speaker 1: election in Por two, there really is no Kamala has
Speaker 1: plenty of billionaires bagging. I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 1: make it seem like she doesn't, but there is really
Speaker 1: no parallel for the level of influence and infiltration of
Speaker 1: the Elon Musk with the Trump campaign.
Speaker 4: So Musk responded to that tweet, oh really, one fifteen
Speaker 4: am and said, more accurate would be that I'm quote
Speaker 4: George Soros of the middle. I don't want the pendulum
Speaker 4: to swing too far right, but right now is just
Speaker 4: too far left. And like, this is a guy who,
Speaker 4: you know, a couple of hours later was quote tweeting
Speaker 4: Glenn Greenwald, he's just a I like to again, to
Speaker 4: his credit, I find him to be a genuinely interesting
Speaker 4: ideological figure. I find him to be objectionable as an
Speaker 4: oligarch and someone who's like clearly using his business empire
Speaker 4: to I would say, influence public policy beyond the bounds.
Speaker 3: Of what's fair and just. But yeah, at.
Speaker 4: The same time, at least he's being honest about it,
Speaker 4: whereas we throw awards at the Kox and George Soros
Speaker 4: and honor them for their influence of a public policy
Speaker 4: instead of being like that this is corrupt.
Speaker 1: Another thing that's going to be interesting is if Trump
Speaker 1: is less Hawckey should be SEVI China this time around,
Speaker 1: because Elon has massive financial interests and you know, good
Speaker 1: relationships with the Chinese government. So you know from my
Speaker 1: perspective that could be benefit of Elon having you know, again,
Speaker 1: I object to the oligarch babysitter concepts out of principle,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that there might be some areas
Speaker 1: where I'm like, Okay, well that's actually better if we're
Speaker 1: not trying to start a warwi China right now.
Speaker 4: And I know this isn't any conservatives priority, but just
Speaker 4: from the question of principle, Like if you're somebody that's
Speaker 4: upset about electric vehicles, you know, and you don't like
Speaker 4: electric vehicles, and you think that the government has been
Speaker 4: unduly subsidizing electric vehicles, and you think that that's green corruption.
Speaker 4: Elon Musk is the man behind that, Like he's been
Speaker 4: the architect of that with Tesla, and Donald Trump has
Speaker 4: changed his position on electric vehicles because of Elon Musk Musk,
Speaker 4: And this is again, the difference between Trump and Elon
Speaker 4: is like the difference between Trump and Elon and other
Speaker 4: politicians is Trump has come out and said he's literally
Speaker 4: changed his position on electric vehicles because Elon has been
Speaker 4: giving him a lot of money and support.
Speaker 5: Yeah,