Talking Feds host Harry Litman examines Trump’s latest legal aggressions. The Washington Post’s Ben Terris discusses the DJ influencing Trump—and if you’re thinking Kid Rock, you need to listen.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and Biden cancels nearly four point three billion dollars in public worker student debt. We have such a great show for you today. Talking Feds, Harry Littman tells us about Trump's latest legal aggressions. Then we will talk to the Washington Post Ben Harris about the dj who is influencing Trump and if you're thinking it's Kid Rock, spoiler, it's not.
But first the news.
Somali ho Man, We have a lot of you on news to go through, but first tell me what you're seeing with these judges in the Senate.
So one of the really good things that Biden is doing is Trump confirmed a ton of judges. Biden has confirmed he's expected to secure his two hundred and thirty fifth judicial confirmation of his presidency as soon as Friday. This means that he will have installed one more judge than Donald Trump. And Democrats have put an extra emphasis on the federal courts following Trump's far reaching first term, where he filled three Supreme Court seats. Now Biden only got to fill one Supreme Court seat. But these federal judges, it's a big deal. It's really good. And this is the work of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He's tied up the votes on two potential California district judges, likely to be the last judicial confirmations this year before the Senator the Congress adjourns and makes way for a new Republican led Senate. He we're seeing Schumer trying to finish all these votes by the end of Friday. The first confirmation will tie Trump's number, the second will break it.
So Molly Elon Musk our new president and we didn't elect He's really messing with this CR vote. It seems like he has no clue what he's doing. But the threat of primary any Republican with all his money is scaring a lot of people.
What are you seeing here, Minni Trump? Elon Musk was very excited.
He was online late into the night and he said he didn't want the Democrats to pass the CR. By the way, the CR cooked up by Mike Johnson, a.
Republican House speaker installed by one Donald J. Trump.
All reasons why President Musk's newfound government interest was a bit strange, because he's a Republican cr put together by a Republican house that needed Democratic votes. Anyway, he was quite mad. He said, shut down the government. Don't open it till January twenty first, showing again he has no idea. Right, if you shut down the government, you have troops, you have people who work in the Federal air.
The TSA at Christmas time when people fly.
Right, and you also have people not able to support themselves. You have national parks closed. I mean it'll be you know, non.
As center their favorite thing, or are not a central government.
It'll be a real problem. So Musk got very excited. He said he was going to Prime with lots of people. He got, you know. But then it turned out that somebody must have explained to him how the government works.
And now cooler heads are prevailing. But before that he wrote on X won't be fine for thirty three days without government funding.
By the way, one of the things that when he cut this big str it's not much money for him, but it's still real money. One hundred and thirty something million dollars for kids with cancer.
That's right before Christmas.
It was allowing children with relapsed cancer to undergo treatments. Write this strip of language that would have allowed children with relapsed cancer to undergo treatments with a combination of cancer drugs and therapies. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration is only authorized to direct pediatric cancer trials.
Of single drugs.
The bill didn't include an extension of the program that gave financial lifelines in the form of vouchers too small pharmaceutical companies working on rare pediatric diseases.
It also missed.
Earlier provisions that would have allowed for kids on Medicare or chips, that is, poor children to access medically complex care across state lines. So right before Christmas, the richest man in the world wants to make sure that kids, poor children can't get cancer treatments. I am shocked, I tell you at how much this is resembling a Christmas store.
I was literally about to say, I really hope with the ghost of Christmas past President future visit him and give him a really lovely holiday break.
Personally unbelievable.
So when he wasn't doing this though, what was he doing BALI he was cheering on the neo Nazi German Party.
Yes, Elon Musk we know his political believes now and they're quite far right. So Mosk endorsed the alternative for Germany, the AfD, a far right, anti immigrant and anti Semitic party that's gaining popularity among conservative Germans. Elon said only the AfD can save Germany. The billionaire wrote on x Mosk has also endorsed other far right figures, Prime Minister George Maloney, who's visited many times. He loves Nigel Farage. He said that a fd's views they didn't sound extreme to him. He questioned if he was missing something. I adf his vehetmently anti immigration, particularly with regards to Muslims, calling for a net zero number of immigrants entering Germany in the coming years. It sounds a lot like what Elon believes. Leaders of the party have repeatedly made racist and anti semitic statements, emphasizing a need to return to a German ident toitay and pushing other white nationalist views.
I wonder what happened the last time Germans did that.
Yeah, I don't think this is h seem.
To remember a little thing called the Holocaust.
Yeah, I don't think this is a good progression in our world, but not great. You know, we don't have a crystal ball, so we don't know where that will. But you do it, Molly. You and I did not need a crystal ball to know where this Trump administration was going. And what we're seeing here is exactly what we described in the documentary we made on Project twenty twenty five.
Yeah, I know you'll be shocked to know that Donald Trump is doing or at least going to do a lot of the stuff he threatened to do but then changed his mind. So Donald Trump has moved to install loyalists in jobs that Congress did not intend for a new president to replace at the start of his term. That we're thinking about, like how Donald Trump is going to Christopher Ray is now going to resign. Christopher Ray, you will remember, is the head of the FBI. He will resign. Trump is hoping to get Cash Patel into that job. You'll remember that Cash Patel is pretty much has made his number one job will be to install loyalists and to hunt Trump's enemies.
Allah Jay Edgar Hoover.
So Friend of the Show, Tim Miller, he talked to Steve Bennon, not Friend of the Show, about Cash Patel and if he's really serious, all the things he's going to do with his enemy's list, and Mollie, what he said does not make me feel good.
Well, I mean, the one thing I will say is that what Steve Bannon does is he tries to make you scared. So just again, none of this is good. But I'm just saying, like, these people want you to be scared. So but he did say that said he said Tim Miller Cash didn't even try to hide the football. Steve Bannon didn't try. Bannon asserted, speaking in the third person as one does after speaking to America Fest, a yearly gathering of MAGA diehards hosted by Turning Point USA. He made a fucking wow, that's very nice movie called Government Gangsters, and the first guy is Mayor Garland, Okay, and Lisa Monico's in there. Who in the nation doesn't know we're trying to make these people famous. So no, first of all, it has to happen, and number two, it's going to happen.
Look good stuff.
It's bad, But I also would say, you know, these guys really want you to be scared, So the most important thing you can do is be brave. Harry Littman is a former US attorney and the host of the podcast Talking Feds.
Okay, here we are with another Molly mashup where she talked politics, I talk news and we try to figure it out together. This is like maybe half a dozen or something, but our first since November fifth. I think so kind of gruesome when a lot of stuff to talk about.
How are you, Molly, I'm good, you know, just another in almost Trump's America. Actually would love you to talk about this. So Trump World has a bunch of executive orders all lined up, and we don't exactly know the structure of them, but we know that there are going to be a lot of them, and a lot of them are going to focus on immigration, and probably a lot of them are going to focus on these kind of I want to say, federal government smashing, you know, kinds of things like maybe he doesn't take apart the Department of Education like he says he wants to.
So I'm wondering if you could talk to us.
About the sort of legality of executive orders and what can happen and what can happen in them.
Yeah, so, first, you're totally right. My sense is a whole part of the workshop of Project twenty twenty five. Maybe like third subterranean is these executive orders. The law on it, MALLI is they really only control what the executive branch does. But the executive branch at like the federal government, has it hooks in everything, so you can really influence quite a bit, even if you're just giving commands to the executive branch. Now, the thing that's going to be easiest, like twelve oh one on the twentieth, there's going to be all these executive orders rescinding Biden executive orders, and those there's really going to be very little way to challenge that.
Would be things like stay in Mexico, right.
Well, so that those when once we get to immigration, Yeah, I think there's there's you know, reproductive freedom, but also you know, public lands and really all kinds of shits. But there are going to be others that will, like you know, just as they're gearing up on executive orders, that people will be gearing up to sue and the and the real question is going to be whether they're divesting rights that third parties have. And you know, there's a there's a whole complicated stewol of law about when executive orders can be challenged. But Basically, the easiest time is to just order the you know, federal employees, here's my executive order. Everyone wears a tie, who works for the executive brand, not much to do about that, but the executive order. Everyone who contracts with you know, land and are certain climate change stuff or whatever has to have these kinds of procedures. Now, there's gonna be lawsuits in general. There's gonna be you know, dozens and dozens of lawsuits sort of from day one. But that's the basic distinction. Anything big and nasty they want to do. If you want to talk about abortion or immigration and the like, he won't be able to do. This is a gross generalization, but it's larsi true. Just just by a stroke of the pen, then the litigation will come right.
For example, when it comes to executive orders that talk about deportation, I mean from churches, from schools, from hospitals. Is there anything that legislators can do or can the courts that the courts can stop them?
Yeah, So I'm first thing about the courts and the answer is yes, And that's going to be the battle is going to be really joined to two levels. Level one is going to be the people themselves, and I think you probably know there's a shadow army, really an army. It's impressive of litigators, including you know, big shot pro bona types lining up to represent people who they try to deport. And that's a very good example of something that an executive order can't just do away with. They have vested rights and there's a whole system, and the President doesn't just declare it null and voiding. That's the authority there comes from Congress. And then the other level is going to be state authorities. There's going to be Blue states especially who say you can't screw with me on that we have. These are our citizens. When you do this, it's going to really affect our economy. We have standing to challenge it, and there's going to be big court battles. Now you know something like this, it is probably going to work its way up to the US Supreme Court, and you always hold your breath there. But it's not going to be the you know, just unilateral action by court. There's you know, states have a stake, a real state and also the potential deportees themselves. And that's leaving aside, what what can states do to gear up actually legislation that could be a really big battle. You've seen that the Trump guys the borders are says that if anyone tries to harbor immigrants, we may come after them criminally under federal law. It's going to be ugly civil war reconstruction shit that. You know, We're gonna kind of a shameful episode, I think in you know, the history books. All right, my turn, So since the fifth I and and not just me, but I mean people I respect, everyone really out there saying it is happening. Look at the FBI, look at the media, look at the nominees. It's happening here and now, and it does feel like it's hard to get the message through. You've made some comments about the Democratic Party and its friendliness is one way you put it, But it's certainly not you know, not being a kind of vehement opposition party, is it? The Democratic Party?
Is that?
The media? How do you account for the kind of lack of panic or even focus out there in the world you know we live in, but also you know, America to what seems to me and a lot of people I respect, I mean, I really think it's so to be in real time before our eyes now real assaults on norms and democratic rule.
Well, I think there are two problems here.
One is that Donald Trump has not taken office yet. So I'm not defending Donald Trump by any stretch imagination. But we're not there yet, right, He's not president yet. I mean, he's acting like he's president and he may shut down the government, but he's not actually president. So I think part of my thinking, at least when I think about how to talk about Donald Trump's assault on democracy, which we think is coming, and he's certainly picked.
Up we think is here, but go ahead.
But yeah, but he's not in office, right.
He has cabinet picks that are ranging from unseerious, too scary, and some are okay, like Marco Rubio, don't agree with him, but hard to imagine a world where Marco Rubio.
Grown up isn't.
Yeah, but I think that until he starts doing things, the promise of doing things is not the same as doing things, and so I do think that is reasonable.
I also think people are exhausted.
Where I would fault Democrats if you want to get into faulting Democrats, which maybe don't.
Here's what I would say.
Democrats did much better down ballot than they probably deserve to, considering the anti incumbent headwinds. But I would also say they lost some races they shouldn't have lost, like that Pennsylvania Center race. And also they lost all of the swingy states, so every single one, and they lost by one point five points, which is in this polarized world, quite a lot. So I would say, if you were to pause and sort of be reflective of this, there were there was clearly some problems with Joe Biden that were not addressed soon enough, and that you know, it was a maybe it was a messaging problem. Maybe it was an inability to transmit the economy that was really humming along under Biden. That maybe perhaps Democrats were not good enough at addressing the problem of inflation, explaining it in a way that was helpful for people. Whatever, there are any number of reasons. The other thing that I would say that I think is really important is Democrats said when they were running, they said that Trump is an existential threat against democracy. Now I absolutely one hundred percent believe that, But then if Donald Trump is an existential threat against American democracy, then every single thing you do should be when you're a democratic legislator should be at least well, you still have the Senate and the Presidency and a very close margin in the House, should be trying to safeguard those norms and institutions and not say worrying about the country's bald eagle and making sure that that becomes the bird.
If you think that this is D Day, I don't mean.
Real D Day, I mean philosophical D Day, then you should be thinking about the ways in which you can protect the norms and institutions.
So they are not the follow where you think huh.
I think you can't make that case unless you really believe it. And if you really believe it, then you should not be doing bald egle bills. You should be doing protecting the sort of even just the nuts break yeah, not even breaking glass, because remember you of one party that believes in norms and another that doesn't. So but at least safe, at the very minimum, safeguarding the things we hold.
So, dear amen, okay, your turn.
My question is you have an enemy's list. You have a very very distinct possibility that cash Fattel could end up in charge of the FBI. How much you and I were probably not on the first, second, or third list. But we're probably somewhere on a list somewhere. So what kind of protections? And I'm certainly not asking this question for myself. Protections absolutely, guy happens to if your name rhymes with Holly, should you what should you be doing?
Okay, very personal question, and I'll like I myself, so I tend to agree. I've just determined to try to live my life, and I think they'd have to be digging really deep before my name would come up. That said, I have now a somewhat robust defamation policy so that if I get hit with a bogus defamation lawsuit that's really about nuisance value and making me spend a lot of money, that money will be spent out of insurance. God forbid I get hit with a legitimate one. But that's sort of on me. I'm being damned sure that my taxes are in order and going through with accountants now, because that's going to be I mean, if they're if they're really If your your name Molly comes up on the list, the question I think will be first and foremost, how to harass you, how to make you miserable, how to drag you through the mud rather than you know, the threats now against Liz Cheney contemptible on louder Molk's part, but they don't. They're not going to have anything criminal on her, and if that happened, the courts would be there to protect. But there's things they can do to really.
Make your life annoying and maybe.
Even a little more than annoying. So I am, in fact assuring that up I do. I feel a little bit like crap. I can't believe it's come to this, but I do a final read of everything I write, and for the lay people out there when you think about defamation, any thing about statements of opinion versus statements of fact, and I just have in my mind red light green lights sort of all the way down. But that's all I mean. I'm like, I do think we've seen this part of what your last answer was media really being you know, Colt and kind of tacking his way because of fear of what they'll do. And I, if anything, become tried to become more independent. You know, I left the La Times so I don't have to be subject to others kinds of coward or whatever, or flinching, you know, on that basis, I mainly myself. The main thing I'm doing is you know, self therapy or whatever. They just like be sured that the north Star is telling the truth and you know, trying not to be too nervous as a result. But I got the defamation policy, and then there's some things. If it really really gets ugly, you know, and you get a subpoena for something, I've got to suck it up. At that point. There really is a phalanx of people out there, I think, ready to help against people who are being here at you.
Yeah, but also do you know we got to be brave. I mean, it's what, George, that's it.
I mean, that's right.
I have a question for you.
No you don't because it's my turn. You post an Instagram. Well, I'll just cut to the chase. Elon Musk, you said he's birthed the mini Trump and his name is Elon Musk. I wonder if you see it. But I wonder more this is a little less politics and more psychology. But like, what is the deal there? Is he gonna you know, regret it down the line? Will Trump turn on him? Is he you know a patriarch? They're making like Russia. What's the deal?
Let's look to Trump one point oh right, So who were the people who surrounded Trump and Trump?
One point zho? And why are none of them helping Trump? Two point zero?
None of them are back? I guess that's right.
Huh Right, Rudy is whatever and losing his rings mind.
Yeah, but he's also.
Losing his like you know, he had World Series rings or something, I mean his watch collection.
So you got.
Rudy, you got Mike Pence not the vice president this time, you know. No, I mean these people are all gone. So I think the question is and even like, yes, certainly some people like Roger Stone and Steve Bannon, but those guys are on the outside.
People on the inside.
Mark Meadows is gone, right, I mean, Susie Wilds is new.
All these people are new. So look for now.
Now there is this alliance between Trump and techros. But you could see a world right where everything Trump touches dies right where the people it tends to be, the people in his inner circle tend to go. And even like Mike Johnson, you could see Mike Johnson's having a lot of trouble now passing the cr looks like they're going to break it up. Looks like there's going to be some government funding. It's hard to imagine. I mean, Trump is not super loyal, so I'll be curious to see how this plays out. I don't know when Trump gets sick of Musk. And look, Musk has a lot of money, right, He's the richest man in the world, so Musk, you know, Trump is not going to be able to just snap his fingers and get rid of Musk. But I would not bet on that friendship in the long term.
And there are some very rich people in Russia who lost.
R Okay, my question for you, Joel, you left the La Times. The owner of the La Times. He's all over the place, but it seems like he's very trump curious. And why to I mean, talk about a billionaire who is just all about getting his hands and everything.
Talk to me about why he left the La Times.
I didn't mean to sort of take it out on him personally, and well, yes I did in a way because it was his conduct. He is trying to have his hands and everything, you know, the Lakers, et cetera. But I think that's what has given Trump. This is the bad thing. And it's also happened. I think, you know, it's part of what happened with ABC and Disney, It's part of what happened with the Washington Post. The legacy media have these big corporate holdings, and that's I think what they're scared of the boardroom at Disney or Bezos thinking about Amazon. They're not caring about the paper per se. So it did seem to me. I don't want to psychoanalyze them, but the action stand for themselves, and they've just gotten worse in the last couple of weeks. It just came out, I think yesterday, that he wants to have a hiatus on writing about Trump. And then before that, the idea was, if you write anything about Trump, you need to have something on the other side. And then before there's the notion that if you're writing about Trump, he wanted to see the draft first, and he wanted to know the name of the drafter. And look, if this were a concerted sense that like Trump has really been treated unfairly on the merits and the crazy liberal press just takes off after him, it'd be one thing, but it isn't that nobody. It's just then this goes back to our first question, mam. The stakes are high and it's a time for choosing and the notion of balance, as I put in the substack letter explaining it, there's, you know, on the one hand, on the other hand, coverage, which is what he's trying to you know, think like a is a sort of very well packaged defense. There is no other hand. The first sort of norse star responsibility of the papers have to be for just giving the facts and the truth. And we have a situation in which, time and time again, I think maybe one hundred percent of the time, when something happens, Trump is driven by a lie. And there's you know, you were you were beginning to analyze the election results. But at least part of what happened is that a lot of people got fed accounts of the news that obscured that. And so if the press isn't allowed to do that on some bogus idea of balance, we're in grievous shape again. And it goes back to what I was saying before that we are in this really difficult moment where a lot of guardrails are already being mowed down, and you really have to look through the press. I think, I mean, what I'm trying to do myself, and I think more people are doing it, including you. Is have your own kind of independent voice, so at least you know, people can just judge you on your own words, but no one can think. You know, you're being asked to shade and you're agreeing to you know, when you contrast it's happening here with say Watergate or what do you expect of the media, and you compare it with you know, what has happened in societies that have devolved toward authoritarianism like Hungary. It's it's fucking terrifying. I think, yeah, I think that's right. Speaking of weird, terrifying developments in American society, I wonder what you think about the kind of lionization of Mangione, the guy who did the cold blooded killing of the CEO of Healthcare right outside of New York Hotel America has this funny kind of history of vigilantes. Do you think it's the current political climate? What do you make of this sympathy that he's listening and especially to the extent you can break it down this way among younger voters, he really is, you know, sort of has found a number of champions among this generation X crowd.
So I would say, look, this guy killed someone, right, killing someone is bad, no matter who you can kill all. Yeah, yeah, you shouldn't kill people.
Now. I'm not going to say, but you're.
Not what's the next word? We're listening hard.
You can't say killing people is bad, but but you can say the fact that this is meant by cheering is a sign.
It's two things. I think.
One is it's not a good sign for where American society is right now, right because you have a lot of people who are feeling very disenfranchised. People being delighted that someone has been murdered is not a sign that society in America is humming along in a good way.
Right.
That's you just it's like, you know, it's like having a fever. Right, something is wrong. Yeah, I would add that. I also think one of the things that breaks my heart is that there's a lot of populist sentiment and Democrats were unable to make the case that.
They were the populist party.
So you had Joe Biden pouring money into things that would lessen the inequality in this country, and because they were unable to transmit that, voters went and voted for a billionaire oligarch, exactly the opposite of what at least they seemed to want. So that is a failure on the part of the Democrats. It's also a failure on the part of the voters. It's sort of a failure everywhere.
So in my mind, the heartbreaking thing about it is.
You have people who are really suffering in this country, because nobody celebrates a murder unless things are really bad.
So that's number one.
And then I would say the worst part is they're really suffering, and so they decide to elect someone who will only increase their suffering. And in my mind, that is the tragedy of where we are right now. I wrote about this this week from Manny Fair, like, so many of Trump's policies are you know, reenacting these zombie laws right anti you know, Victorian laws about you know, anti pornography, sort of anti you know that kind of thing, or laws that are able to kind of put people who are enemies in camps or to jail them because they are representatives of the country that you're at war with because they come from those countries. So so much of this is sort of Victorian era or even you know World War One or eighteen twelve, you know the War of eighteen twelve, the Alien Enemies Act. So many of these laws are laws from another time.
Right.
Trump Ism functions in an idea of bringing America back to a time that never existed. And so I would say, in my mind, the thing that makes me the saddest is you have all these people who are hurting so bad, and the thing they did is something that's going to cause them more pain.
You know, it's a really nice point. It's the time of enity toward the other, and you know the other can be many incarnations all we're out of time again. It's always such a so fun to do it. To see you in thirty days. I just want to pick up one little strand and tell everybody if you do not know Howard Fast not just his story but his writing. He was my dad's favorite, one of the first like grown up type novels I read, still really relevant in Germaine and dust them off. What's the big one?
Is it Freedom Road?
Freedom Road? Or Spartacus?
Spartacus? Yeah, the source of the great movie. Okay, happy holidays to all and see you in January.
Thank you, Thanks Harry Thank you.
Ben Terris is a reporter at the Washington Post and author of The Big Break, The Gamblers Party, Animals and True Believers trying to win in Washington while America loses its mind Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Ben.
Harris, thanks for having me.
I was excited to.
Have you because you are such a good writer, and also because this is like a piece that I'm sure you sat down to write as sort of a curiosity, but it has in my mind.
It captures a larger story that I want to talk about.
So this publisher slash DJ is this publisher slash DJ the most powerful man in Trump's transition.
He's a prison I have literally never heard of discuss Well, that's.
Partly why I wanted to write about him.
You know, I love finding people that most people haven't heard of that actually have kind of like a secret amount of power.
Yeah. And I'm like, not even most people. I tend to know some things.
Yeah, and I didn't really know who he was either before I caught his name in an article somewhere about this new job that he had in Star started looking into him and was like, oh, man, Sergio Gore, I should really get to know this guy. And make sure that you know, the American people really know this guy too.
So he's a DJ. How does this happen?
Yeah, well he's an amateur DJ.
He DJ's you know MAGA parties around mar A Lago as one does. He's very popular among kind of the MAGA set in general. And the way he got this job, and the job is the Director of Personnel for the White House, which means he will be vetting, finding, helping nominate, helping place about four thousand political appointees in the government, which is incredibly powerful, right. I mean, Trump has been talking about how he wants his government to be different this time around than last time, and this is the guy who's going to be largely responsible for that, finding people who are loyal to the president, who believe in the America First ideology, none of these kind of turncoat types that they feel like, you know, hindered their ability to do all the things they wanted the first time around. And so he has this huge job, and the way he got it's basically by being super loyal to Trump, lovedy loved by Trump's family. Working on this story was insane for me. It's usually very hard to get certain folks on the phone, and they were all calling me to sing praise of this guy, partially because of the role he's about to have, but also partially because I think they just like this guy, which you know, that's a character witness of sorts.
Okay, so they like him, and now he's leading the transition.
Yeah, Ultimately Donald Trump gets to decide who's in his government. But when there's four thousand jobs, you don't have time for all that. And so this guy, along with you know, Charlie Kirk and Don Junior and probably JD. Vance and others, are going through applications of thousands and thousands of people and placing them all around the government. And it's just yeah, like I said, it puts him in this very powerful position where people all over town are going to feel like they owe him favors. And you know, his resume includes things like being Matt Gates's wedding officiant. These are points you get in magaworld by being that close to the stars of the Trump world.
How did he get himself into this though.
Well, his backstory is he originally worked for Rand Paul. He was a communications guy.
So he had some political experience.
Oh yeah, yeah, Yeah, he definitely did. He worked for Rand Paul, He worked for a number of House Republicans. You know the types he might expect, Michelle Bachman, Steve King, the kind of fringy people who no longer are necessarily seen as as fringy. I mean, Steve King and Michelle Bachman are gone, but their type of Republican politician is very much, you know, in vogue right now in Trump's universe. And so he has experience on the Hill. Jared Kushner told me on the phone, he called me when he was doing criminal justice reform. Sergio Gore was somebody who really helped him navigate the Hill. So he does have this understanding of Washington that not everyone in the Trump world had in twenty sixteen. So he's been kind of a helpful figure for that time.
But then he really.
Got into Trump's orbit by joining his fundraising operation in twenty twenty. And also, probably more importantly, he started a publishing house with Dawn Junior. Okay, and the point of this publishing house was conservative authors need a place where they can write their books without fear of being canceled by the publisher. If you are a controversial Republican and you write a book for Penguin, and then you go out and say something, It's possible they might say, we're no longer going to publish your book. Sergio Gore was not going to have that issue. People were not going to have that issue with Sergio Gore's publishing house. He'd publish any conservative, regardless of how controversial. I mean, yes, they had to pitch their books to him, and he, you know, could say no, but he wasn't going to say no, because you know, something they said was you know, if he was more like, is this book going to do well? Are you enough of a star? So he published books by like Charlie Kirk and the like, and he also published Trump's books. So Trump's picture book, I don't remember what it's called, Save America, White Firm America, something like that, you know, the one with him on the cover, bloodied up and huping his fist. That was a Sergio Gore book. And these books did really well. And you know, I think Trump likes to be associated with people who help him make money, help him become successful. He's also a Mara Lago member and would hang out with Trump late at night singing Phantom of the opera on the patio. He just kind of had Trump's ear. Trump liked being around him, and that is enough to make you, you know, kind of a star in his government.
Oh Jesus Christ.
So he's going to staff up the Trump White House.
Correct, Yeah, that's right, White House.
You know, the agency is pretty much anything under Cabinet secretary that's an appointee, a political appointee, falls under his purview. And so he'll, you know, have people come in for interviews, give them tests, loyalty tests, definitely, loyalty test for sure, asking how they voted in twenty sixteen, how they voted in twenty twenty, how they voted in twenty twenty four, what they thought about January sixth. When I talked to Don Junior for the story, he told me that the most important date for people going through this process is where were you on January seventh? If you were with us on January seventh, great, If you weren't, you probably aren't going to get a job.
Okay, what does that seem like it looks like to you? I mean, does this guy have other loyalties or is it really just Trump?
He is loyal to the movement for sure, I mean, he's loyal to America.
First.
He's definitely definitely loyal to Trump. I don't know what his like pure ideology is, right, Like, he was kind of a libertarian at times. He worked for Rand Paul, and you know, Paul and Donald Trump are not exactly the same. They have plenty of differences. I think he's loyal to the people in power and the people that are loyal to him. I think he just kind of has a mutual love for people that can help, I don't know, help them move up in the world. He's got a real ambitious streak. And so there are people I talked to for the story who worked a lot alongside him and under him, who definitely did not feel as positively about him as all the kind of powerful people I talked to for the story.
That's interesting, and that does sort of make sense, right, that he would have two different kinds of personalities. Perhaps, So I'm wondering if you can talk to us, like sort of pull this out a little bit and talk to us about other people in Trump's universe who we may not be totally focused on, but who may have an outsized role.
It's a good question.
I mean, this is one of the things I'm trying to figure out as I report. Right, we have this new government coming in with all these new figures, and it's going to be really hard to know where the actual power is. There's a lot of talk about, you know, Elon Musk and the veik Ramaswami and their so called department, and is this going to be what changes the government?
It might be, right, that might end.
Up being one of the most powerful government adjacent organizations, if you can call it. That really might change the shape of, you know, of the United States government. But also it might be that somebody in some of these agencies ends up with all the power, and we just don't know that yet. And I think it's going to be really hard to know who actually has power until these people take over, right, We're not going to actually be able to know who Trump is leaning on, who's getting advice from because the way that the Trump is, you know, that can shift on a day to day basis.
Yeah, he's very changeable, which is perhaps not super surprising. I'm curious as you're starting to cover this, what you see as the differences.
Between Trump one point zero and Trump two point zero.
Well, for sure, they're more organized now. I mean, this process that Sergio Gore is running is an organized process. They have a whole team of people that are scouring, you know, public statements, past performances, making sure that everybody is going to be as loyal as they need them to be and as competent. And a big change too, is that more people want to be part of this government. One thing that Jared Kushner told me when I was talking to him is that in twenty sixteen they could barely give away ambassadorships. People were so kind of hesitant about Trump's presidency.
They didn't really know what it meant.
He was more controversial to your average Republican. Back then, people didn't really necessarily want to be a part of something that could be a complete disaster. And now Republicans are fully on board for who Donald Trump is, and these positions that once were hard to give away, now they're getting twenty applicants per position. And so that means that one of the big changes is that he really does have kind of a complete stranglehold over the Republican Party in a way that early in his presidency he didn't necessarily have, you know, over the course of that presidency, Republicans kind of bent to his will, but now he starts with that, which I don't know. It's a pretty big advantage for somebody trying to make a new government to have everybody on his side.
Right, that is certainly true, and it's a big different from what the original Trump was.
Like I'm wondering if you.
Could talk about what you think Trump's like the ethos, if it's different, Like so there are more people willing to work in the Trump two point oh than Trump one point zero, But do you think that Trump two point zero is different in other ways? Like do you think he is more organized or less crazy, or more unbound or just sort of from what your senses?
I mean, my guess, and I don't.
I don't know anything that's going to happen, because you know, anyone who tries to.
Make creative in this business is always wrong.
And then you can always, you know, point to everything they said and been like, well, why would you trust any of these people because they're wrong about anything. So I can't say for sure, but what it seems to me is like Trump is the same he's always been, but more so and now he has the ability to maybe from the jump accomplish the things he wants to accomplish. I mean, it did take time for the government to kind of the Republicans and the government to I don't know, align themselves with him. There was a hesitancy, and now to have everybody on his side from the beginning, I don't know. I feel like he feels empowered because he is. He won again, and it just has become very clear that the Republican Party is the Maga party, and I just feel like that must make him feel like he has more control than he's ever had.
Yeah, which is not great.
One of the things I've been really surprised by is that I sort of thought that Trump's alliance with r f K Junior was more about RFK having delivered him some level of woman voter and that he wasn't necessarily is attached to him.
And from what I understand, Trump actually loves RFK J. Can you explain this well?
I mean, for one thing, I think Trump loves anybody who helps him, right, so that's definitely going to be a big part of it. And also, I don't know, they kind of must be able to shoot the bull in a way that he can't with other people. You know, he must love being around a what does he always talk about He talks about.
He likes a convert. I feel like he.
Likes a convert for sure.
He also likes people who are from quote central casting, right, and like what's central casting than a Kennedy? And you know, Kennedy has stories and he must love to tell and he's controversial in ways that Trump is controversial, and I think they probably can just connect on that level. I think that's got to be a big part of it. And also I think Kennedy must go into these meetings feeling empowered himself just because of who he is. He has like a sense of self and a sense of you know, he's got an ego. And Trump must kind of like hanging out with somebody who feels almost like an equal to him, because my guess is he often feels like he's, you know, the coolest guy and most impressive and most powerful person in the room, and here's somebody who can, I don't know, go toe to toe with him a little bit.
Yeah, it's crazy.
So you wrote about Joe Biden and Donald Trump and this photo op they did together.
Talk to me about that.
Yeah, that was a strange moment.
If listeners don't remember, this was shortly after the election, you know, and the election was this hard fought democracy is on the line, Authoritarianism is on the rise.
Watch out for fascism.
You know, if you elect Donald Trump president again, you know, we could lose our country.
Kind of deal.
That was sort of the message and the vibe of the election. And suddenly, after the election is over and Trump has won, Joe Biden welcomes Trump into the Oval Office for a photo shoot. They shake hands, they kind of laugh with one another, and the line that really stuck out for me was Joe Biden said to Trump, welcome back. He was welcoming this man back into the White House. And there were kind of two schools of thought about this.
You know.
There were the norms lovers who were like, this is important for Biden to welcome the rightful winner of the White House back, to show that there will be a peaceful transfer of power. This is a way to differentiate the Democrats from the Republicans. Everyone remembers what happened last time. And then there were the people who said, well, how can we trust democrats now? We if democrats they're going to say this guy is an existential threat and then just go ahead and welcome him back in this kind of friendly, cozy oval office meeting. There was a fire roaring. It just felt like a real kind of nice time. If democrats are going to do that, how can we trust them when they say somebody is an existential threat to democracy?
And so I wrote about that.
I tried to capture the moment and also tried to talk to a lot of folks who had differing opinions about, you know, where they came down on whether this was the right move or not.
Yeah, such an unbelievably unprecedented moment. Do you have any thoughts of like historical moments that feel to remain to this.
That's a good question. I don't know. I'm not sure that anything quite comes to mind.
I mean, I'm sure there are moments of world leaders meeting with authoritarians or dictators that they've spoken about as strong men who need to be feared, and then having kind of handshake moments they get captured in photos for people to digest.
Stuff like that.
Probably, I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on that moment, if you had thoughts on you know, Trump and Biden meeting in the Oval Office. Did you have like an initial response to that.
I mean, my thinking is you can't tell people that Donald Trump is an existential throughaut to American democracy and then be like, and it's business as usual. I don't want to be too nice about this, because I do think there is a fair amount of incompetence going on here. But ultimately you cannot have one party that is interested in protecting norms and institutions and another that is just like, you know, let's do authoritarianism. So I that's where we are. I am not happy, but I also am I understand the tension there, if that makes sense.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's a real complicated moment. I should have called you for the story.
Well that's all right, I'm happy to not be quoted.
But I also think it is this thing where you have to wonder how much like this is. This was a moment where even a really truly gifted politician, he was faced with an opposition party like the Republicans who didn't believe in the norms.
Would have a very tough time. Yeah, and that is not Joe Biden.
So I think it's unrealistic to expect things that were not possible. But it's also just really jarring to see and fundamentally, like, if you're going to use that rhetoric, then you have to be prepared to back it up, which they were clearly not.
Yeah, it's an unenviable situation. The best way to have dealt with it would have been just to win.
I guess right, And there you have it. Thank you, Ben Harris. I hope you'll come back.
Yeah, anytime.
Thanks so much for having me.
No moment perfectly.
Jesse Cannon, Oh Molly, we're getting close to the end of the year, and I always remember that the Supreme Court, they're the one governing body that they go pretty late in the year. They they keep going. They're not just throwing Christmas parties. And that's a bad thing because when I hear about what these people do during these hearings, it makes me want to die.
Just as Alito, you know him as someone who clearly watches a lot of Fox News during the oral arguments in US v. Scremetti, it's a case about something he engaged in sustained and aggressive questioning of an attorney about factual data outside the record that was never subjected to the crucible of legislation. So basically, Alita was very patronizing to the US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelager, who's quite smart, and I think it was another moment of court watchers seeing just what incredible sexist Alito is, and perhaps there are sprinklings of misogyny in there too. I know you'll be shocked to know that the guy who took away your constitutional rights over your own body may also not be a fan of women working outside the home and justice. Alito, you are once again.
Our moment of fuckery.
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